


Easy Prey

by Jaicen5



Category: The Professionals
Genre: Non-Consensual Drug Use
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-05
Updated: 2012-05-05
Packaged: 2017-11-04 21:07:54
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 43,233
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/398218
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jaicen5/pseuds/Jaicen5
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Someone wants Doyle.  Wants him very badly and he's in a position to make it happen.  Bodie's never been known to follow the rules, or the law for that matter and if it means saving his partner, he'll break every one.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

 

 

**Doyle & Bodie – Easy Prey**

_I do not own these characters nor claim any right to do so.  
This fanfic is purely for entertainment purposes only_

 

**Chapter 1**

 

The man sat waiting in the prison visiting room was old before his time. Greyed, wasted and hunched from his incarceration, but his eyes still burned bitterly for his predicament and those he thought responsible for it.

A shadow moved into the harsh fluorescent lighting and uninterested, he looked up. He didn’t recognise the man in the smart suit who sat down on the other side of the small table, but his visitor smiled pleasantly enough at him.

“Heard you still carry some clout in here,” the man began, opening a packet of cigarettes and offering them politely.

The cigarettes were ignored. “Who are you?”

The man in the suit left the open packet on the table and leaned back. “I represent someone who has a common interest with you. A grudge shall we say.”

The silence stretched, the burning eyes regarded him steadily, nine years of form etched deep in their depths. The prisoner laughed, abruptly, humourlessly, and took a cigarette from the packet. “Is that right?”

“Yes that’s right.” The suited man produced a lighter and courteously lit the cigarette. “He is of the opinion that you may be interested in a little deal.”

“In here?” the prisoner scoffed openly and puffed the cigarette to life. “What sort of deal does he think I can do from in here?”

“Oh you’d be surprised.” The suit leaned forward again and closed the cigarette packet, pushing it towards the older man garbed in Her Majesty’s prison uniform. “And it’s easy enough. We get a man put away, you finish him off. Slowly. That’s all.”

Tired eyes gazed shrewdly at the visitor through the lazy spiral of blue smoke. “You want me to waste someone once he’s put in here? Risk my privileges? Why should I?”

“Why shouldn’t you?” the visitor countered. “I’m sure that you will have no objection, despite your privileges.”

“Why don’t you do it yourself, outside?”

The visitor hesitated. “My client does not want a suspicion of murder to taint his reputation, whether false or not. You on the other hand are already serving life for the act.”

The cigarette flared as he sucked in deeply, taking his time. “What makes you sure he’ll get sent down. And to here?”

“We have ways and means. He’ll end up here and then it’s up to you.” Intense satisfaction briefly appeared on that bland face. “Easy prey.”

The prisoner was curious now. “Who is it?”

The visitor smiled and there was not a shred of warmth in that smile. “Raymond Doyle. Ex Detective-Constable, now CI5.”

Bill Haydon’s eyes lit up and for the first time in years, his grey face showed a spark of animated life. He leaned forward eagerly. “When?”

 

*********************

 

The girl stood alone in the pub nervously shifting her weight from foot to foot. Waiting. Hoping. Dreading.

An attractive girl, with long dark hair, matching dark eyes, and the sort of figure that most men turned to look at, she waited anxiously, needing only one man to notice her, a man she hadn’t yet met, although she knew what he looked like. She’d been shown a set of photographs and had been told that he frequented this pub on a regular basis. Her job was simple, they said, and she had everything she needed in her shoulder bag to carry it out, but she was still nervous, unwilling to go through with it. But not going through with it was worse. Much worse. You didn’t cross John, not unless you were tired of living. She’d found that out far too late. Fear of him, plus the threat to withhold her stuff if she didn’t comply, impelled her to carry out his distasteful orders and she had long ago ceased to fight him. And so here she waited, waited for the man in the photograph to come through the doors.

She’d fretted that he wouldn’t find her attractive, wouldn’t want to sleep with her, but her fears were allayed by both John and the current clientele of the pub, the former having already used her body, and the latter blatantly wanting the same. And he was a ladies man, she’d been assured over and over, he’d find her beddable. If he ever showed up, she thought to herself bitterly. This was her third night waiting for him, her third night of being hit on by men, being indecently propositioned and evading their drunken pawing, and yet again, he hadn’t showed.

She drained her drink in one swallow and fidgeted some more, ignoring the tipsy man who was trying to catch her eye on the other side of the bar. She hoisted her bag again, her grip on it tight, fretfully conscious of the contents and was about to give up when he walked in the door. Panic caused her to freeze up, nerves jangling like a bell.

She recognised him instantly, he was just as handsome as the photo had shown her, just as powerful across the shoulders, his physique fit and toned. Smooth, dark haired, his lean face both predatory and boyish, dark eyes expertly sweeping the room and fixing on her, even though he had a woman on his arm. Her face betrayed dismay. She hadn’t counted on that. Neither, obviously, had John. Looking at him though, it was hardly surprising and John certainly should have foreseen it. She didn’t think for a minute that he would ever be without female company, unless it was by choice.

He gave her a once over, she guessed more from sheer force of habit rather than any sort of desire, as he guided his companion to a seat next to her at the bar. He was tastefully and expensively dressed, clothes fitting his impressive body like a glove and he crossed the room with innate power and confidence. Like a cat, she thought a bit dazedly. Like a big cat, a panther. He exuded sex appeal like a fragrance and the female in her responded helplessly. She gripped her bag again, knowing what was in there and that this man was the key to using it.

She waited until he ordered a beer for himself, a gin and tonic for the blonde woman with him, then rattled the ice suggestively in her glass. John had said she had to do it, and however reluctantly, she had to obey him. He looked across and smiled at her, and she saw that his eyes were a dark blue, rather than black as she’d originally thought. She had a sudden wish that he was by himself, that she didn’t know John, that none of this was anything other than a chance meeting in a pub.

“Waiting for someone?” he asked her.

She shook her head. “Been stood up.” She included the other woman with her smile. No point in making enemies. “But it’s OK, I’ve just got in from an overnight from New York, so I suppose I should make it an early night.”

He grinned at her boyishly, eyes lighting up. “You’re an air hostess? What a coincidence. This lovely lady is an air hostess as well.”

She smiled at the other woman. “It does interfere with one’s social life, don’t you think?”

To her relief, the blonde smiled back at her, seeing a kindred soul. “You can say that again.”

He asked her what she wanted to drink and she relaxed marginally. She was in.

 

***********************

 

Raymond Doyle had a headache and a half. Of course being walloped by a rebounding pulley and chain was bound to cause one. Which is exactly what had happened earlier that afternoon when he and Bodie had been sent to bring in Simmons. And he’d had little chance to avoid the crazily swinging chain and block since Simmons was crazily swinging a knife at the same time and Cowley _had_ said he’d wanted him alive. He put a hand up to the bruise on his temple and winced as he unlocked the door to his flat and switched off the alarms.

The factory floor had been coated in black rubber dust, the fight with Simmons had them both rolling in it, and all Doyle wanted now was a long hot shower, a dozen aspirin and an early night. He starting stripping off the minute he got to the top of the stairs, carelessly discarding items of clothing as he entered his bedroom, inordinately glad he’d managed to talk the doctor out of admitting him overnight to hospital. Mind you, he’d still been made to wait for several hours to ensure there wasn’t any concussion and Bodie had sensibly taken advantage of the delay to get back to headquarters and lodge the report while he’d been stuck there.

He tossed his gun and holster haphazardly on the bedside table and stepped out of his filthy jeans.

Five minutes later he was standing under the shower, head down, both hands braced flat against the tiled wall as the hot water sluiced over his aching shoulder muscles and trying not to groan with the pure pleasure of it. He tilted his head under and let the jets of water blast the rubber dust from his hair. If he could go to sleep right there, in the blissful warmth of the water, he would, he thought drowsily, before reaching lethargically for the soap.

It wasn’t until the hot water ran out, and he finally turned off the taps, that he heard it. A noise from downstairs. His dripping head came up, eyes instantly alert and he flicked his gaze through the open door towards the bedroom, where his Walther P38 lay on the bedside table. Pushing open the glass panel of the shower cubicle, he reached quickly for a towel, sheathing it around his lean hips as he edged towards the bedroom. Another noise, the muted sound of glass tinkling and a low murmur. Doyle frowned and pressed himself against the wall, peering around the corner. Nothing. He scampered over to his gun, pulled it from the holster, feeling the butt snug against his right palm. Taking a risk, he quickly hauled on the dirty jeans he’d just discarded and then inched towards the staircase to the lower level, stopping just short to peer over the edge. Nothing, the noise had moved to the kitchen. Doyle released the safety catch, held his gun up and padded silently down the stairs. He was half way down when the intruders walked out of the kitchen. Doyle tensed, swung the handgun up, bracing himself to pull the trigger… then relaxed, letting his head fall back against the wall, looking heavenward. Bodie.

He’d helped himself to a drink, looking very relaxed and easy. And smug as two very attractive women followed him into the living room. Doyle exhaled, adrenaline draining, headache returning along with irritation. He hurriedly shoved the gun into the back waistband of his jeans, hiding it from view.

Bodie looked up and saw him. He raised a brow along with his glass. “Ah here he is now. Ray, come on down.”

 

 

 

She followed Bodie’s gaze and saw him. And involuntarily sucked in her breath. His photo hadn’t done him justice at all, she thought as she took him in. He was gorgeous, still wet from his shower, and if she had to play whore for John, she couldn’t have picked a better specimen. She watched him admiringly as he hesitated, glancing back up the stairs, as though to go back up and finish dressing, before changing his mind. Barefoot, he padded lightly down the remaining steps, clad only in a rather dirty pair of faded, scruffy jeans and a silver necklace. His chest and broad shoulders were sprinkled liberally with droplets of water from his sodden dark hair. She looked at his face with unconcealed interest, noting his wide spaced light eyes, his full lips and that damaged right cheekbone, somehow less noticeable in reality, than it had appeared in the black and white photograph she had been shown. It was an open, easy to read face, currently displaying both irritation and resignation, and those expressive eyes missed nothing as he passed, curiously checking her out. She dropped her gaze quickly, not wanting him to read her so easily, and instead found herself enjoying the sight of his hard, lithe and decidedly wet body as he turned the last corner of the staircase.

 

 

 

Doyle faced his partner and shoved his dripping hair out of his eyes. Bodie’s lips twitched in amusement. Doyle with wet hair never looked like Doyle, and it always amazed him how long his partner's hair actually was when waterlogged almost straight. “You look like something the cat dragged in.”

Doyle made a rude noise in the back of his throat, “Yeah, well you’d know.”

Bodie didn’t miss the acidic tone and recklessly decided to provoke his partner further. He looked him up and down; smirking at his state of undress and his sharp eyes hadn’t missed the semi auto tucked into the small of his partner’s back. His grin widened wickedly and he dropped his voice lower. “Well you certainly know how to make an entrance, it’s not loaded with blanks, I trust?”

Doyle’s eyes were steady on him and Bodie saw the blue sparks of sudden temper. Delighted that his baiting had scored, he turned and indicated one of the girls. “That’s Donna.” He tilted his head to the other, “And that’s Katie. Airline stewardesses in from an overnight.”

“Yeah?” Doyle nodded at both girls and eyed his partner sternly before taking his arm and steering him very firmly into the kitchen. “Don’t you know how to knock?”

Bodie looked injured, “I did. Right before I used the lockpicks.” He saw irritation flash across his partner's face. “Don’t worry, they didn’t see a thing, I know how to be sneaky, they think I had a key. Should have one anyway, save all this bother.”

“Could have given me some warning,” Doyle grumbled.

“Your phone rang out,” Bodie protested, “but when I called the hospital, they said you’d already left. Come on, get your glad rags on, we’re off to paint the town red.”

Doyle shook his head and immediately regretted it. He put one hand up and rubbed at the bruise on his temple. “No, not me, mate. My head's fit to burst.” He turned to a cupboard and reached in, groping for the packet of aspirin he knew to be in there. “The only place I’m going is bed.”

Bodie helpfully took a glass from the draining rack and filled it with water as Doyle dumped three tablets from the box into his hand. He leaned in to his partner conspiratorially, “I think that’s what Katie had in mind. Seemed rather eager to come over here and meet you actually.”

Doyle took the proffered glass, threw the tablets into his mouth and took a large gulp of water, swallowing them down. “Not tonight, Bodie, appreciate it, but no.”

Bodie searched his partner's face thoroughly, carefully, but saw only weariness and a rather large bump on his forehead. He shrugged. “Well if you insist, but maybe…..” He was interrupted by the appearance of both girls, wine glasses in their hands. Doyle turned his back to the counter, hiding his handgun. Bodie moved across to Donna and put his arm around her. “Slight change of plans. Ray’s not up to coming out with us. He had a hard day at the office, a minor mishap with a filing cabinet.”

Both women pouted at this but Doyle just shrugged, tired and wanting them out of his flat.

 

 

 

Things weren’t going to plan and anxiously, she tensed up. No one had expected him not to co-operate. She looked at him, at the water droplets decorating his shoulders, his hard agile body - she could smell that clean soap smell on his skin, and had a sudden, fierce yearning for him that left her aching deep in her belly. Surely he hadn’t suspected anything, she barely needed to act at all such was her attraction. Yet he was resisting. All John’s careful plans... God... she had to somehow make him want her. She smiled alluringly at him, ignoring his unconcealed lack of interest and stepped closer, half lifting a hand, wanting to touch him, all that intoxicating wet skin. She licked her lips, “A shame, I was looking forward to it.”

He said coldly, “Another time perhaps.”

It was like a dash of cold water thrown in her face and, flustered, she moved away back to the living room, arousal warring with panic. What was she to do? John would be so displeased. She rubbed her arms as though cold, recognising the onset of the craving, the need for a man, the need for her fix, entwined together, burning through her nerve endings. John would withhold her fix. He would blame her. It wasn’t her fault; she would have willingly bedded either of them, both of them, even without his threats. Panicked she checked her watch. He would be waiting for the call. She looked at the whisky bottle, where Bodie had left it and the clean glass on the tray. Maybe she could hurry it up, just skip the evening out and the sex afterwards, much as she wouldn’t have minded either. She walked deliberately towards the whisky and her trembling fingers unzipped her bag.

 

 

 

Doyle ran a hand through the saturated strands of his hair, feeling suddenly guilty. It wasn’t her fault, she was attractive enough, and any other time he’d have been interested. He was aware of Bodie watching him, alert to his mood. Doyle readied himself for an argument with his partner, but Katie suddenly reappeared, smiling again.

She held out a glass. “Here, you look like you could use a drink.”

“Cheers.” Doyle responded automatically taking the glass and placing it on the bench behind him noticing as he did so that, although beautiful, she seemed a bit uptight, a bit tense, her eyes flicking to the glass of whisky, teeth worrying her lower lip as she fidgeted. He wondered what she was so edgy about.

Bodie attempted to smooth things over, giving Doyle a look that clearly admonished his appalling lack of manners. “He’ll be up for it next time.” He raised a confirming brow at his partner and Doyle nodded agreeably. “Right then, I know a little place, where the music is good and the drinks are cheap. Shall we go ladies?”

“Well, perhaps a toast before we go?” Katie said raising her own glass in the air and looking intently at Doyle. “To Ray, hope you are feeling better tomorrow.”

Bodie smiled charmingly at her and raised his own glass. Doyle didn’t think mixing alcohol with pain killers was a good idea, but if it got rid of them… he picked up the drink and swallowed the Scotch in one mouthful before reaching around and putting the glass in the sink, careful not to expose the weapon tucked into the top of his jeans. Donna was collecting their coats and Doyle looked back to Katie, saw sudden relief flood her face and frowned, puzzled. Bodie began shepherding the girls towards the door.

“Oh wait,” Katie exclaimed, “I forgot my bag,”

She turned and went back into the living room. Bodie helped Donna on with her coat. Standing at the sink waiting, Doyle felt a sudden wave of dizziness. He really needed sleep he thought blearily, rubbing his eyes. Katie was taking her time, what the hell was she doing? But just as he was about to go look for her, she reappeared, taking a long assessing look at him as she passed. “Another time, Ray?”

“Yeah, yeah.” Doyle kept a grip on the kitchen bench and waited until both women were safely out the door before reaching around with one unsteady hand, pulling the gun from the small of his back, and checking the safety catch. Another wave of dizziness caught him. Clumsy and distracted, he tucked the weapon down the front of his jeans so that he could hold on to the rocking bench with both hands.

Bodie hesitated at the door, attuned to his partner. “Ray?”

“I’m all right,” Doyle insisted, flapping his hands in dismissal. “Go on, I just need a good night’s sleep.”

Bodie frowned at him, hearing his words slur. He hadn’t slurred before. “Maybe you should have stayed in hospital.”

_“Bodie!”_

“All right, all right, keep your shirt on. Just don’t forget to set the alarms and locks. And dry your hair before you get pneumonia.” He waited for the bite but Doyle seemed miles away, eyes unfocused, gripping the edge of the kitchen bench. Bodie’s eyes travelled down Doyle’s left arm to that white knuckled grip, took a half step towards him. “Ray?”

Doyle jerked his head up and nodded acknowledgement to his partner, rubbing his eyes with one hand, keeping a grip on the edge of the bench with the other. “Yeah, yeah, I’ll dry my hair, then I’m hitting the sack.”

There was a plaintive call from Donna outside and Bodie tapped the door.

“Alarms,” he repeated, pausing again, before almost reluctantly, shutting the door behind him.

Doyle stayed where he was, waiting for the dizziness to pass, but if anything it got worse. He took a step towards the door and the floor tilted alarmingly. Something wasn’t right. Doyle tried to yell, to get his partner back, but suddenly the floor was coming up to meet him, the gun in his waistband slamming painfully into his stomach as he instinctively raised a hand, just in time, to stop his face smashing into the tiles. He heard Bodie’s car start up outside and tried to raise himself up. Nothing co-operated, his arms feeble and useless, ignoring the command from his brain to push upright. Fear gripped sudden and hard. He couldn’t move. A lethargic mist was curling around his vision, the room tilting upside-down. And he felt rather than saw the door open again behind him. Heard footsteps on the floor, cold air swirling around his half naked body. Felt hands touching him; turn him over, traipsing over his stomach to take his gun. Lift him from the cold tiles, shoulders and legs, carry him back upstairs.

Doyle tried to protest, tried to fight off these hands that carried him into his bedroom, laid him gently on his bed, arranged him to their liking - just so, arms and legs casual, pillows behind his head. But his limbs were like lead, unresponsive to the shrieking commands of his mind, and they stayed where the unknown, impersonal hands had placed them. The ceiling spun like a merry-go-round, faster and faster, dark shrouded figures hovered over him, gloved hands gliding over his wet skin and he inwardly recoiled, aware of their touch, their presence, and his inability to fight them. What the hell was wrong with him?

Who were they? He couldn’t focus on their faces, and the mist was thickening, like fog, but he could feel them, sense their ill intent and his helplessness frightened him. What the hell did they want? Waiting, the room still spinning crazily, he sprawled on the bed; aware of the hands returning to his now icy skin and he inwardly flinched. Then he felt his left arm being raised, something tight wrapping around his bicep, and tried to roll away, but his body, paralysed, disobeyed his brain’s feverish commands. A finger tapped the inside of his left arm and Doyle abruptly knew what was going to happen. Terrifyingly knew that he couldn’t stop it. He needed help and fast. His spinning mind sought a face and his lips formed the name. He felt the prick of a needle pierce his skin; find a vein. _Bodie!_ Warmth flowed into his arm. _Bodie!_ Blackness descended.

 

***********

 

Bodie was quiet as he drove towards the bright lights of the London nightlife. He had a persistent feeling of foreboding and Doyle’s unorthodox behaviour was bothering him. His partner had taken a fair whack to the head and although it hadn’t knocked him out, it _had_ knocked him flying. He’d seemed all right at the hospital and when they’d first turned up at the flat, but as they were leaving...

Donna half turned in her seat and laid her hand on his thigh. Bodie smiled absently and checked the rear vision mirror. Katie was fidgeting, staring out of the window, eyes haunted, teeth again worrying her lower lip. Donna’s other hand came up, angled across his shoulders, stroked his hair and Bodie glanced across at her, at her exquisite face, painted lips smiling prettily at him. The nightclub was just up ahead. The feeling of foreboding grew stronger - too many years working with Doyle, no doubt - and Bodie made up his mind. He pulled the car over to the kerb and got out, tilting the driver’s seat forward so that Katie could climb from the back.

Donna alighted and stood on the footpath, “I don’t think you can park here, Bodie.”

Bodie looked across at her. “You go on without me, love, I just want to nip back and check on Ray. I’ll meet you inside later.”

“Bodie,” Donna began but Katie hurriedly put out a hand, fastened it on Bodie’s arm. He looked down at the hand and then up at her face, dark blue eyes questioning.

“I’m sure he’s fine,” Katie said, dropping her hand quickly. “Just tired. He’s probably sleeping.”

Bodie thought of his partner clutching the edge of the kitchen bench, swaying, eyes unfocused. He stared at her penetratingly before inserting himself back into the car and slamming the door. Turning the ignition key, he spun the wheel, sending the Capri back the way he had come, leaving both women standing on the footpath.

The feeling of unease escalated steadily as he drove back out of central London and all sorts of possibilities manufactured themselves in his imagination. Concussion, most likely. He should have made the stubborn sod stay overnight in hospital, should have ignored his protests. Brain haemorrhage, another part of his mind offered and Bodie stamped his foot down on the accelerator. Whatever it was, he should have stayed and seen to him, made sure he was all right.

The unease moved smoothly into fear and then flared into near panic when he turned the corner into Doyle’s street and saw the flashing blue and red lights, police, marked and unmarked cars, dark figures milling around them and resplendent in the middle of this chaos, a large white ambulance parked out the front of his partner's flat. Two attendants were carrying a stretcher out of the gate, the body covered in a white sheet.

Bodie screeched to a halt and exploded from the Capri, leaving the door swinging wildly as he fought his way to the ambulance, dark eyes fixed unerringly on that linen covered body. A uniformed policeman blocked his way. Bodie fished automatically into his pocket, produced his ID and waved it at the policeman, but to his surprise, it was ignored. “Sorry, sir, I cannot permit you to enter, this is a crime scene.”

“I have authority,” Bodie snapped.

“Not in this instance, sir. This involves a crime with one of your mob and as such CI5 are prevented from investigating it.”

Bodie stared at him, then at the stretcher, ready to be loaded. His face drained and shoving the young constable aside he was suddenly running, haring towards that body, long and slim under the shroud. The constable gave chase, calling for support, but Bodie reached the stretcher way ahead of him, skidding to a halt, startling the ambulance attendants. He ripped back the sheet in one swift motion, naked fear taking hold of him, nothing able to prepare him for what he might see. The hair was dark, curling, splayed across the white padded stretcher. The eyes were closed, the lips slightly parted. The face was horribly bruised, blue and quite, quite dead.

Bodie stared, a muscle twitching in his cheek. She’d been young and pretty, and she'd been beaten badly but all he could think, all he could lock on to... was that it wasn't Ray. Christ, it wasn’t Doyle. He carefully let out the breath he hadn't been aware of holding; relief short lived. It wasn't Doyle, but who the hell was she? And where was Doyle? His eyes shot up to his partner’s flat, brilliantly lit.

The young constable had reached his side and took his arm. Bodie shook him off, intending to enter Doyle’s flat but was halted by a voice he immediately recognised. “Stop right there, Bodie.”

He spun around; face deadly in its intensity and involuntarily, Clive Williams took a hasty step backwards. “He’s not there.”

“You’d better start making sense, Williams,” Bodie snarled.

The MI6 man nodded towards the house, where several other MI6 agents could been seen. “Doyle, he’s been arrested. He’s not there.”

“Where,” said Bodie with ill-disguised patience, “is he?”

“Can’t tell you that, you know the rules. CI5 cannot investigate one of their own. Even Cowley will tell you that.”

“Investigate him for what?” Bodie shouted, taking another step towards the MI6 man.

Williams looked smug. “Drug trafficking and murder for a start. Possible sexual assault for another. Not so squeaky clean your Doyle then is he?”

The smug look was abruptly wiped from his face as Bodie unhesitatingly let loose with an explosive right hook, his slow burning fuse well and truly detonated. Williams went careening backwards, nose spurting a very satisfying bright red.

“BODIE!”

Bodie swung his lethal gaze up, saw the Ford Granada, the familiar shape alighting from it and stepped back, face immediately closing down.

 

 

***********************

 

 

“You damn fool, you want to block us completely from this?” George Cowley looked at his disobedient agent with marked disfavour and if his eyes softened for just a fraction, Bodie didn’t see it. “We can’t interfere in this investigation.”

Bodie finally swung his head around, glared at his chief. “So we leave Doyle to rot, wherever they’ve taken him?”

“No.” Cowley’s voice was stern. “We go by the proper channels. They can’t deny us seeing Doyle. They can’t deny us seeing the evidence. They can however, deny us actively taking part in the investigation. Punching young Williams in the face isn’t going to do Doyle any good.”

“Maybe. But it did me a lot of good,” Bodie muttered, eyes still smouldering as he glanced across at the MI6 agent, who had gained his feet, eyeing Bodie angrily over the handkerchief clapped to his nose.

Cowley gave Williams a look of dislike. One of his colleagues had appeared to help him up, Cowley couldn’t remember his name, Perkins, maybe, Parsons. He turned back to Bodie and gave him a disgruntled, if sympathetic look. “Aye, no doubt. Come along laddie, we have work to do.”

Bodie angled an eyebrow up. “Work?”

“Yes. We need to see Doyle. He’s in hospital. Under MI6 guard. I’ll drive, you don’t look like you should be behind the wheel.”

Bodie obediently followed his chief to the Ford Granada. He waited until he was in the passenger seat before he let fly. “What is this, what happened?”

Cowley glanced at him briefly as he started the car. “What do you know?”

“Know? Sod all! I left him less than two hours ago and he was fine.” But even as he said it, Bodie knew that was wrong. He hadn’t been fine. That was why he’d come back to check wasn’t it?

“I don’t know all the details. I know that both Doyle and the girl were in bed, the implements for a heroin fix scattered about them, that there were significant amounts of other drugs found in his flat. No sign of a struggle.”

Bodie let the words rush over him, but they were very nearly drowned out by a roaring in his ears. The blood drained from his face. His anger surged, re-igniting that smouldering fuse. “It’s a set up. Drugs? And Doyle? What sort of nutter would think for one minute that anyone’d believe Doyle doing drugs? They must be out of their mind.”

“A jury system would, if given the evidence.” Cowley’s voice was like a whip.

“Doyle hates drugs, hates them with a passion. He wouldn’t even dip while he was on the drug squad, not even to keep his cover intact.”

Cowley nodded. “You and I know that, Bodie. We just have to prove beyond doubt it’s true.”

Bodie flopped back into his seat seething. “Who? And why?”

“You know the answer to that, lad. We’ve been there before and no doubt we will again. Grudges Bodie. Long memories.”

Bodie turned to look out of the window. Why hadn’t he stayed?

Chapter 2

Doyle hadn’t been taken to the usual CI5 ward. He was instead in the high security wing and not one, but two men stood on guard at the door. Cowley stopped before them as they barred his way. “I have clearance from the minister,” he said, voice soft but authoritative. “Let me through.”

No one argued with Cowley when he used that sort of voice and they stood reluctantly aside. Bodie followed his chief into the room. A doctor was just straightening up from the bed, a stethoscope in his hand. He twisted to see who had interrupted him, removing the earpieces from his ears as he did so. Bodie’s face tightened as he gazed at the bed and its occupant. 

Doyle lay peacefully on the mattress, his wide expressive eyes shut, dark lashes causing shadows under the harsh fluorescent lights. His chest rose and fell reassuringly, but the oxygen mask was a stark and brutal reminder that all wasn’t well. As were the handcuffs, securing his right wrist firmly to the side rails of the bed. Bodie, for some obscure reason, saw that Doyle’s hair was still damp, bedraggled, not quite dry enough to spring back into its usual curls. As though he hadn’t dried it after they’d left. It made his partner look somehow fragile and Bodie’s temper flared again. 

Cowley, correctly expecting no help from the angry young operative at his shoulder, produced his own ID to the doctor. “We need to know his condition.”

The doctor flicked a quick look to one of the MI6 men who had followed him in but knew authority when he heard it.

“He’s drugged,” the doctor stated, carefully modulating his voice to convey facts only. “Heroin user, you can see the marks here…” he lifted Doyle’s left arm to demonstrate, and Bodie saw the telltale needle tracks. And there wasn’t just one. Anger bubbled under the surface but a hard look from Cowley silenced the protest about to erupt.

“It wasn’t enough for an overdose,” the doctor went on, laying Doyle’s arm back down. “But it seems to have produced this sort of coma state, I can’t quite work it out. If I didn’t know better, I would think there was something else….”

“Something else?” Cowley queried, his voice still mild, but Bodie hadn’t missed his hard look at Doyle as he’d entered. His boss wasn’t happy, not at all.

“Yes,” the doctor applied the earpieces of the stethoscope to his ears again, pulled the sheet covering his patient further down, exposing his abdomen and placed the flat piece of the instrument over Doyle’s heart, resuming his examination. “I’ve examined a lot of heroin junkies, but this is different. Heroin can produce lethargy, sleepiness. But there is usually a response of some sort, some sort of reaction to stimulus, unless they’ve overdosed.” He glanced up to make his point clear. “Which of course can lead to coma and death. But not this one. I don’t think he’s overdosed; yet he’s displaying the comatose symptoms of one. I can’t be positive, but it’s like there’s another drug in his system.”

“How can you find out?” Cowley was fully aware of Bodie, tense just behind him. Knew he was hovering on the edge of exploding.

“Blood tests may tell us. Depends on what it was. I’ve taken samples.” He fussed with the sheet to place the stethoscope on Doyle’s stomach.

But Bodie had noticed something as the sheet had moved. He reached forward and pulled the sheet further down. The doctor stepped back startled. Doyle’s chest rose and fell regularly, signalling normal breathing patterns but Bodie’s attention switched to his partner’s legs, still in the dirty jeans he had pulled on in a hurry when leaving the shower. He stared in consternation. Doyle hadn’t dried his hair; he hadn’t changed out of his filthy jeans. 

“What is it?” Cowley asked, as Bodie moved closer, his eyes coming back to what had caught his attention at the waistband of the jeans. Mottled shading. Bodie reached out, snapped open the clip of Doyle’s jeans and the bruising was more apparent, darkish red, still new, shaped roughly like an upside-down ‘L’.

The doctor peered closer as well. “Bruising to the abdomen; looks consistent with a blow.”

Bodie felt sick. “Did the alarms go off?” he asked Cowley harshly.

Cowley shook his head. “No, they weren’t set.”

Bodie inhaled angrily and raised his eyes to the ceiling. “He had his gun in the waistband of his jeans when we left him in the kitchen. He looked dizzy and his words were slurring. He said he was just tired.” He gestured to the bruising. “He’s fallen. He fell forwards and the gun left that impression. It must have happened right after we left. His hair, the jeans… Where was his gun, when MI6 found him?”

Cowley gazed shrewdly at him. “I don’t have the facts yet.”

“Slurring is a symptom of heroin usage,” the doctor put in unhelpfully. “He’s a frequent user, there’s a trail, although these all look new to me.”

“I saw his arm as we left.” Bodie raised his voice, glowering at the doctor. He stabbed his index finger to the tracks in his partner's arm. “There were no needle marks and he’s not a junkie, he wouldn’t touch the stuff. This has been forced on him.” He turned instinctively to Cowley, dark blue eyes intense. “He must have fallen in the kitchen, right after we left him.”

“Bodie,” Cowley said warningly.

“He was all right when we were at the hospital,” Bodie said fiercely. “He was all right when we got to his flat. It was when we were leaving.” He stopped, casting his mind back, recalling. Doyle had come down the stairs, his usual self. He’d taken aspirin, Bodie had handed him the glass himself. There’d been no evidence of Doyle consuming anything else between arriving home and taking a shower, and Bodie knew his partner well. For all that he dressed so scruffily, Doyle was fastidious about being clean. He would have put the shower before food or drink. He swung his attention back to the doctor. “He’d taken three aspirins, would that be this second drug you think is in his system?”

“Not at all.” The doctor shook his head baffled. “Aspirin wouldn’t cause him to be like this, nor would the heroin itself unless, like I mentioned before, he’d taken a fatal dose, in which case he’d be dead by now. If you’d said sleeping tablets, I might be inclined to agree.” 

Bodie had a sudden vision, of the four of them standing in the kitchen, of Katie proposing a toast to Ray’s good health. Of her bringing him the glass of Scotch, of her taking a long time to collect her bag. He took a step back, face white. That bitch. That bitch, she slipped Doyle something in the drink, she had to have done.

He turned to Cowley. “I have to go, find this girl, I think she may have slipped Doyle a drug. The glass, Ray left it in the sink. And I bet she made a phone call, if you can check his phone sir.”

“We can’t investigate this Bodie,” Cowley said loudly.

Bodie stared at him, eyes dangerously narrowed. Cowley flicked his eyes upwards and Bodie belatedly remembering the MI6 man, standing just inside the door, tried to make his voice meek and obedient. “Yes sir.”

“I think you should go home now, Bodie and get some rest. We’ll see what we can do in the morning.”

Bodie nodded infinitely to his boss and hurriedly squeezed Doyle’s cuffed wrist before leaving the ward. 

Cowley remained, staring thoughtfully at his agent’s peaceful face. He ran a finger lightly along the needle marks in Doyle’s arm. The doctor was right, they were all new, but that wouldn’t prove a thing in court. Someone had gone to a lot of trouble to have his man convicted and Cowley very much wanted to know who. But first he had to do his best by Doyle.

“Rest easy, lad,” he said, patting the arm. “We’ll get you out of this.”

 

******************

 

The nightclub was hopping when Bodie got out of the taxi. Couples and groups of young people hung around the outside and the neon lights flashed brilliantly, reflected in the wet footpath. Bodie pushed his way to the door and held out his ID. The bouncers overseeing the entry nodded resignedly to him and he went on in. It was packed. He threaded his way through the crowd looking for Donna’s blond head, hoping against hope that Katie was still with her. He finally found her at the far end of the bar, engaged in very close conversation with a young man in a velvet suit. Bodie wrinkled his nose sneeringly, and the young man discreetly departed, but Donna gave him a decidedly frosty look. “Oh so you decided to show up.”

Bodie didn’t waste time. “Where’s Katie?”

The look that flashed across her face should have warned him, but Bodie’s thoughts were miles away from jealous girlfriends. “How should I know? She didn’t even bother coming in. Hailed a taxi and split.”

“Did she say where she was going?”

Donna’s face hardened and she stood up. “I didn’t ask her, I didn’t think you’d be interested.”

Bodie’s brain finally clicked into the here and now and he grabbed her arm as she made to stalk off. “Sorry, love, sorry, but Ray’s in hospital, and I thought Katie might like to know.”

She stared at him suspiciously for a moment and then softened, lips parting in sympathy, eyes filled with sudden understanding. She had known Bodie long enough to know that he and Ray were very good friends as well as work colleagues. “Is he all right, what happened? Is there something I can do?”

Bodie held on to his patience. “Yeah, love, you can tell me what you know about Katie. Did she say anything at all about herself to you?”

“No, she was anxious to go, she looked sort of scared if you ask me.”

Bodie clamped his jaw in frustration.

”She took a taxi to Fulham.”

“Fulham?” Bodie leaned down to her, to hear over the music.

“I heard her tell the driver.”

He could ring the taxi company. He caught Donna’s lovely face between his hands and kissed her full on the lips. “You’re a doll.”

She had no time to savour it, he was gone, and she didn’t know whether to be angry or not.

 

******************

 

George Cowley turned on the lights in his office, prepared to make a night of it. He crossed to the desk first and dialled a number, gave instructions to trace all calls made from 4.5’s flat and then hung up the phone, staring at it thoughtfully. If Bodie was right and the unknown drug was administered in a glass, he needed to secure the evidence. MI6 had appointed Williams to the case and Williams certainly had no love for either Doyle or Bodie. How could he get the glass without twigging Williams to it? The drug squad would almost certainly be called in and Doyle had once worked with them. Benny would know, Cowley had recruited him from the Drug Squad and he might be able use his connections. He picked up the phone and dialled again.

He’d barely replaced it when Bodie walked in. Cowley removed his glasses and looked up at him, pinching the bridge of his nose with thumb and forefinger. Still wired, he noticed, his young agent didn’t sit down. Instead, unusually, he paced back and forth as he explained about the girl. Cowley lifted the phone for the third time to pass instructions to the taxi companies.

“It will take a while for the results to filter in.” Cowley replaced the phone and looked up at Bodie. “Doyle won’t wake until morning, why don’t you go home?”

Bodie stopped pacing, face closed down, unreadable, but Cowley knew what he was thinking. Bodie was berating himself for leaving his partner. 

”Not your fault, Bodie,” he said. “Doyle is as stubborn as you are.”

Bodie looked up. “Who was the dead girl?”

Cowley shrugged. “I’ve no idea. A junkie, that’s all we know, judging by the needle tracks on her arms. She was found naked in bed next to Doyle, and she’d been beaten to death. Her clothes are in forensics.”

Bodie paced. “If you leave this case to Williams he’ll throw away the key.”

“I back my men, Bodie, and I don’t take kindly to my men being set up. I have a meeting with the minister and MI6 in the morning. If you’d like to join us you’ll be able to see the evidence they’ve collected and we can proceed from there. It’s possible that they may have come to the same conclusion as ourselves, that it’s a set up and Doyle will be freed.”

His tone indicated differently though and Bodie didn’t argue; Cowley had done all he could for tonight.

He turned without a word and left. George Cowley sat and stared at the telephone. He didn’t need to look out of the window to know that Bodie hadn’t turned in the direction of his flat. He’d taken the main road to the hospital.

 

*****************

 

Davis, the MI6 guard on the door, had at first been reluctant to admit him.

“You can try and stop me,” Bodie said evenly. “If you want a bust up in the hall. But I’m going in. He hasn’t been formally charged yet, not until he wakes, which means you can’t stop me.”

“Let him go, Brad,” the other guard said tiredly. “He was here earlier and he can’t very well carry him out can he? There’s nothing any of us can do till he comes around.”

Bodie didn’t wait for an answer, just shoved past. The room had been dimmed in his absence and Doyle lay surrounded by machines, looking lonely and lost in the white bed. Bodie pulled up a chair, sat down and leaned back immensely tired. It was quiet and muted and although he hated hospitals, Bodie was glad for the peace, hoping it would calm his currently overactive brain. He opened his eyes and fixed them on his partner. “Come on, sunshine, wake up.”

But Doyle lay oblivious to the world, lax and loose in the bed, breathing in oxygen, unaware of anything around him.

The door opening roused Bodie from the doze he had drifted off into and he turned to see the doctor that they’d spoken to earlier entering. If he was surprised to see Bodie there he didn’t say so. Instead he said: “The blood tests are back, your boss put a rush on them. Peter wasn’t happy being dragged out of bed this late.”

Bodie raised a brow, less interested in Peter than the results. “What did they find?”

The doctor hesitated, glancing at the door again. “Heroin, not a lot, but still enough to identify. And to give him a good trip, but we’d guessed that from the evidence.” He indicated Doyle’s arm with his pen. “And there is something else, but the test came back inconclusive.”

“What does that mean?” Bodie demanded.

The doctor removed his stethoscope, “It means inconclusive. There was nothing in records to match it. Whatever it is, it’s new. But it put your boy down fairly quickly judging by his condition.”

Bodie was silent, inwardly seething as the doctor did his observations. Doyle didn’t move, not when the cold instrument pressed against his skin nor when the doctor gently palpitated his stomach. The bruise on his abdomen was darker, showing the distinct shape of the weapon that had caused it. Bodie was quite disturbed seeing his partner so still and lifeless and he stood up abruptly, resisting the urge to shake Doyle, wake him up, bring him back to the land of the living by sheer force.

Finally the doctor straightened up, and covered his patient with the sheet again. He looked rather penetratingly at Bodie. “When he comes down off his high, you may find him disorientated. He is most likely to have hallucinations and he may get violent. Sometimes it happens when drugs are mixed. And if - as you suspect - he was injected against his will, he may come back fighting.”

Well, Bodie didn’t expect anything less from his habitual feisty partner. He nodded to show he understood. “When do you think?”

The stethoscope looped back around his neck, the doctor shrugged looking tired. “Hard to say. I don’t know what else he took, or how long it will take to disburse from his system, to hazard a guess.”

It was in fact near to dawn, when Doyle finally stirred, waking Bodie from a fitful doze in the chair. A clank of metal on metal. At first he thought he’d imagined it, but his bleary eyes skimming the bed and its occupant finally came to rest on Doyle’s left hand clenched into a fist. Another clank of metal on metal and the right joined in, straining against the cuff linked to the bed rail. Bodie gazed, still half asleep at those arms, veins prominent and blue, muscles taut and bulging as his partner fought invisible assailants. 

He leaned forward quickly. “Doyle?” He placed his hand on Doyle’s forearm, feeling the rigid flesh, the slight tremor and squeezed. “Ray?”

Doyle’s eyes suddenly snapped open, wide and staring, the pupils contracted to pinpoints, the irises huge and starkly blue in the shadowed light. Sweat broke out across his ashen face and the arm under Bodie’s hand spasmed again as though fighting against restraint. 

_“NO”_ \- and it was a whisper, forced from between clenched teeth, but it conveyed an awful lot to Bodie, who knew his partner so well. Repulsion and disgust. Anger. Fear! Oh yes the fear was there, strong and tangible, gripping that slender body so that it arched, taut and hard, and Bodie remembered King Leon’s words, as if the crime lord had uttered them just yesterday. _He is frightened of nothing that one, not even of what he should be._

“Ray, it’s OK, you’re in hospital.” Bodie rubbed his hand soothingly along Doyle’s forearm, trying to alleviate that strangling fear wrapped so suffocatingly tight around his partner. “It’s OK, wake up.”

But Ray Doyle bolted upright in bed, wrist wrenching painfully against the handcuff and his hoarse voice broke the peaceful silence of the room. _“BODIE!”_

All hell broke loose.

 

*************

Chapter 3

George Cowley had slept in his office for a total of three hours. Betty, his efficient and highly desirable secretary, had brought him an early breakfast and Cowley made use of the shower in the facilities before dressing in a clean shirt, several of which were kept in a closet in his office for just this purpose. Arriving at the ward containing one half of his top team, he was immensely startled to find other half lying across his struggling partner, pinning him to the bed and succeeding only by force of his greater weight. 

The two MI6 guards stood just inside the doorway, hands hovering over their weapons, unsure of whether to pull them out or not.

_“NO, Bodie, NO, Don’t… Don’t let them._ ” George Cowley could hear Doyle, voice as hoarse as sandpaper as he thrashed in the bed, fighting both his demons, and his partner who had one arm across his throat, the other holding down his left shoulder. _“Bodie! Come back!”_

And Bodie swearing, trying to soothe his teammate, reassuring him that there was no harm, that he was in hospital – all falling on deaf ears as Doyle tried desperately to buck him off and battle his hallucinations.

The bed was a wreck of twisted linen and equipment was strewn across the floor, broken. It looked like an almighty struggle had taken place. 

Young doctor Everett was still in attendance, looking almost as tired as Bodie, his tie askew, his hair in disarray. He straightened up from his patient, empty hypodermic syringe in one hand and Doyle gradually stopped fighting, his body calming, arms falling back against the white sheets. 

Bodie’s face was set and intense, angry as he held Doyle down. His partner subsided, breathing heavily, but Bodie received the full force of distressed greenish blue eyes as Doyle, still trapped in his flashback whispered: “I need you Bodie.”

“I’m here mate,” Bodie murmured, trying to get through to him. “You’re OK now, relax.”

Doyle’s wide eyes finally closed and the tense body relaxed, hands unclenching to lie docilely by his side.

“He should be all right now, you can let go,” Doctor Everett said and Bodie warily lessened his grip, ready to pounce back on his partner should he so much as move a muscle. But Doyle lay quiet, head rolling restlessly, sheened in perspiration.

“What the hell happened?” Cowley enquired, voice like a whiplash.

Bodie straightened up and turned to face his chief, unshaven, rumpled and dark eyed with menace. “Well,” he said belligerently, and smoothed his clothing. “It seems that if Doyle couldn’t fight them before, he certainly is now.”

“He’s reliving his helplessness,” Doctor Everett amplified. He picked up Doyle’s limp wrist and felt for a pulse. “Whatever that second drug was, it seemed to act as a paralysis.” He indicated Doyle, who was still twitching restlessly. “It’s wearing off, and he’s making up for lost time. I’m inclined to believe he didn’t do this willingly.”

Cowley looked across at the MI6 men. “Wait outside,” he told them curtly. They gave him mutinous looks but obeyed.

Cowley turned back, saw Bodie glowering after them and eyed his agent sternly. “You won’t help Doyle by picking fights with MI6 Bodie.” He turned back to the doctor. “What did you give him?”

“A sedative.” Doctor Everett replaced Doyle’s arm on the bed and instead bent over to lift an eyelid. “It will stop the violence but not send him under completely; he should still arrive back on his own, once he’s finished his trip.”

“Bodie.” Cowley took his arm. “Come with me.”

“I’d rather stay here, for when he wakes.”

“We can do nothing for Doyle here.” Cowley lowered his voice. “We have work to do to clear him.”

Bodie looked at the doctor. Doctor Everett gazed back at him and nodded slowly. “I can keep him sedated, for a bit longer.”

Bodie let his breath out and nodded gratefully back, then he was following Cowley down the corridor.

 

**************

 

The Granada was roomy, warm and comfortable compared to the Capri but Bodie wasn’t in any mood to appreciate it. He was tired and worried about his partner. He needed a shower and a change of clothes. Guilt stabbed at him with accusing fingers. Doyle’s violent awakening, still in the grip of the drugs, had given Bodie a substantial shock but it was his partner’s heartfelt plea to him, to Bodie, for assistance, that had hurt the most. Doyle was a fiery, hot-tempered, impetuous bundle of rage when riled, and there was no way he would have not fought back if he’d been able. That he had obviously tried to call for help ate at Bodie’s very soul. That girl - Katie. Bodie felt another spurt of guilt and rage, knowing it was him that had brought her to Doyle’s flat in the first place. If he had his hands on that girl right at this moment…..well, he wouldn’t be responsible for his actions. 

Cowley watched and waited, shrewdly judging the best time to intervene on Bodie’s thoughts. “Did he say anything?”

Bodie jerked his dark blue eyes back from the window and shook his head. “He’s still high. The unknown drug is wearing off, but the heroin has a bit to go yet.”

“Aye, well we have time yet.”

Bodie turned back to the window. Time for what? He had no idea what the old man was up to, had no idea what was going to happen to Doyle once he was lucid enough to be charged.

The minister’s office was neat and tidy, all dark wood and leather. Cigar smoke lingered in the air and Bodie sniffed loudly as the attractive secretary led them in. The minister looked up and frowned, and Bodie glowered back, his highly volatile mood still smouldering. Cowley shot a warning look at his young operative before walking across to shake hands. 

“George, glad you could make it. Nasty business this, what? You know Henshaw and his man, Williams is it?”

Cowley looked across and his expression remained polite, if cold. “Yes, of course.”

“We’ve met several times, sir.” Henshaw said and sat forward, anxious to start. His time was valuable as was Cowley’s. Cowley walked across and sat at the small table where the folder lay. Bodie followed and remained standing, slightly behind and to the left of his boss.

“Drug pushing. In CI5.” The minister shook his head sorrowfully.

“That remains to be proven,” Cowley said sharply, throwing a contemptuous look at Williams. “My man is still in hospital and as yet has been unable to defend himself, or these allegations.”

“Your boy was caught red handed,” Henshaw said mildly. “A substantial amount of cocaine in his bathroom.”

“A plant.” Bodie interrupted angrily but Cowley cut in smoothly. “Aye, we have reason to believe he was set up.”

“By whom?” The minister perched on the arm of his chair. “Your men have the highest security available on their premises George, how did someone get in without setting off the alarms.”

“We won’t know until Doyle recovers,” Cowley said firmly.

“He let them in,” Williams interrupted hotly, eyeing Bodie with dislike. “How else can you explain all this? Drugs hidden on the premises. Your own man high as a kite. A dead junkie in bed with him. Tracks marks indicating frequent use.”

Bodie’s anger flashed dangerously. “Look, I know Doyle, he’s not a pusher, he’s not a user, he’s spent all his working life fighting against them. Someone is setting him up.”

“Bodie!” George Cowley’s voice was like a whip. They were on dangerous ground and Bodie being typically Bodie-ish wasn’t helping. He shot a reproving look at Henshaw, who got the hint and also reined his own man in. Williams subsided and he and Bodie stood glowering at each other, like boxers across a ring.

“You may find this contradicts your beliefs, George. These were taken at the scene.” Henshaw pushed the envelope across and Cowley took it distastefully. The photos were large, black and white and starkly damning in their evidence. Bodie’s brows drew down and his lips thinned as the images flicked though Cowley’s hands. 

Doyle, at ease on the bed, reclining comfortably against the pillows, a tourniquet still around his upper left arm, the hypodermic still in his right hand. His eyes were closed and his chest was bare. Another one, taken from further back and the dead girl was there, naked, sprawled out next to him, grotesque in death. Another print, focused on the tourniquet and the telltale track marks, and Bodie suddenly reached forward, stopping his chief from turning to the next one. 

Cowley paused, studying his agent intently. Bodie’s eyes were narrowed on the photograph. Droplets of water still scattered Doyle’s shoulders, his hair still in lank long rats’ tails. Still wet. Why couldn’t anyone see? Bodie was furious. Furious that this obvious set up was not being ridiculed for the sham it was. Doyle would have changed, Doyle would have dried his hair and Doyle would not have a junkie in his bed.

The minister heaved a sigh. “Bad business all round. Can’t have this you know, George, not good for public relations. Can’t have a bent man in one of our top crime fighting organisations. Don’t feel we have any choice but to investigate it.”

“You will give us the option to prove him innocent?” Cowley put the damning photographs back in the packet. He was angry and he could feel Bodie vibrating behind him, like a phone wire in a stiff breeze, tense and explosive, held only in check by the simple knowledge that losing his temper would more likely hinder his partner, rather than help him. 

“Yes, yes, yes.” The minister stood up dismissively, intent on his next appointment. “But he must be remanded in custody until such time.”

Cowley’s head shot up and he felt rather than saw Bodie stiffen behind him. “You can’t put someone like Doyle in prison to await a hearing. It would literally be putting his life in danger.”

“The minister agrees,” Henshaw put in smoothly, “as, do I, George, that the repercussions of having him on bail is far more dangerous. Your boy is a trained killer. That girl was severely beaten and near strangled before she died. It would hardly be responsible of this government to let him loose on the streets with that charge hanging over him. His training is quite extensive, and his abilities on the wrong side would be disastrous.”

“You can’t send him to prison,” Bodie shouted, his slow fuse igniting in the face of this horrendous announcement. “It’d be giving a free licence to everyone Doyle has ever put away to do him harm.”

“Oh I’m positive our prison system isn’t so lax as to let anything happen to the lad, and he’s well trained in any case, I’m sure he can keep himself from harm until this matter is solved,” the minister replied uncomfortably. “But I must say, George, I agree with Harold here. We simply can’t have a man of his capabilities loose on the general public while the investigation is on. Think of the backlash.”

“Guilty until proven innocent,” Cowley said icily.

“I’m sure Harold and his men at MI6 will do the best they can to ensure that it is investigated quickly and efficiently. And if it is a set up, as you claim, then he’ll be out in no time,” the minister said stiffly, then glanced at his watch. “But I have an appointment, so if you gentlemen will excuse me.”

 

**************

Chapter 4

 

Doyle looked around his cell and tried not to feel depressed. He had seen enough prisons in his time as a copper that was for sure, but he never thought he’d end up in one. Keep your nose clean, Cowley had told him, it’s only a few days, a week at the most, until he’d be called to answer the charge. Doyle intended to do just that. But the only problem was, he wasn’t the one they had to worry about. 

He didn’t know who was in this particular wing, but he could bet there’d be someone here, someone with a grudge. He sat down on the bunk and tried to control the strange twitchiness that had plagued him since he’d woken in hospital. It was only a few days. And he’d been trained well enough. There were plenty of guards about. If he kept out of their way, maybe. He knew, as soon as he thought it, that it wouldn’t work. Not in a general wing. And especially not if he attracted an owner. 

Doyle knew full well what went on in prison systems. How the weak, young and vulnerable – and predominantly the good looking - were preyed upon by the lifers. And while none of these facts particularly applied to him, his background in this instance might circumvent the normal criteria. Some of the top dogs would just itch to get ownership of a law enforcement agent. Oh yeah, he doubted he’d be left alone. And as though to prove it, he sensed movement at the doorway and stood up quickly, balancing his feet evenly, ready for trouble. 

He almost didn’t recognise the man standing there. He had aged considerably since the last time Doyle had spoken to him, face sagging, unhealthy in colour and crossed with red spider veins. He was flanked by three heavies; thugs with tattoos, scars, battered faces. Doyle knew that Bill Haydon had enough clout in the system to still be a top dog. His contacts both in and out of prison were still strong. And Bill Haydon had even more reason to hate Ray Doyle now. Now that his daughter was also serving time.

“Well, well, well, this is a surprise. PC Doyle as I live and breathe. Although it isn’t PC now is it? It’s agent Doyle now. CI5, the big boys.” Haydon stepped into the cell, eyes bright in his unhealthy face. “How the mighty have fallen.”

Doyle stood his ground, warily watching the men as they crowded in after him. He strained his ears for the measured footsteps of the guards, but it was ominously quiet. Paid off, he guessed bitterly. Prison governors came and went, but some things in the prison system never changed.

“Drugs. And worse. A pusher.” Haydon clucked like a mother hen as he strolled to the window. “That’s a good eight or nine years that is.” He turned back to Doyle maliciously. “Plenty of time for us to get to know each other properly. Plenty of time for others to get to know you as well.” He looked Doyle up and down and smirked. “Even more properly.” 

He stepped closer and Doyle resisted the urge to back up, determined to show no fear. Haydon peered at him. “Kept your pretty looks too.” He pulled at the baggy prison issue Doyle was wearing. “This won’t do though, will it, my son? Don’t quite show off your best assets now does it? We’ll have to arrange a better fit; I’ll have a word with laundry.” He walked slowly around the silent agent, highly pleased with himself. “Oh yeah, my son, you’ll be the toast of the shower block. Barry’s boys like the young pretty ones and you’ll fetch a nice price for your owner. They’ll pass you around like my old lady’s mince pies at Christmas.”

Doyle paled slightly and his easy to read eyes gave him away instantly. Bill Haydon chuckled, a bitter and menacing sound, devoid of humour. “Yeah I know all about what happened. You’re mine now boy. They’ve stitched you up good and proper. If you think you’ll be found innocent, you don’t know the half of it.” He reached up a hand, as though to pat Doyle’s cheek and Doyle slapped the hand away, his other coming up instinctively to land a punch on Bill Haydon’s chin. It wasn’t a hard punch, not as hard as he could have done, but it still made Big Bill Haydon stagger back. The minute his fist connected, Doyle knew he’d made a grave error.

The three heavies immediately moved in, and dimly Doyle heard Haydon caution: “Not too much lads, we don’t want him in hospital do we? And we certainly don’t want anything to spoil the auction.”

 

**************

 

George Cowley sat at his desk as usual surrounded by files. His glasses were perched firmly on his nose and he read the pathology report in his hand carefully before sitting back and reflectively pulling at his bottom lip. Dr Everett had risked his job by omitting one vial of Doyle’s blood from the samples handed to MI6 and Cowley had hurriedly sent them down to the CI5 forensics team post haste. The results were startling. An unknown drug. And Doyle had been subjected to it. 

Cowley removed his glasses and rubbed his eyes. New drugs were being developed every day, the illicit ones far faster than the legal ones and it was a constant battle to stay one step ahead of them. But this one… this one was a right nasty piece of work. No wonder there were no signs of a struggle, not with its suspected paralysing effect. Doyle hadn’t been unaware of what was happening and Cowley felt a vast and sudden sympathy for his operative and what he had endured. To know what was happening and yet be unable to move, to prevent it.

Cowley mused on its purpose. A drug that didn’t render a victim unconscious, but only immobile. Drink spiking came to mind. Potential rape. The criminal element would love it as well, an immobile victim to torture and hurt, however to a degree aware of what was happening. Easy prey. 

He’d heard nothing of this type of drug being out on the streets. But it had been used on Doyle, perhaps testing it for them, a human guinea pig. 

Well at least they knew it had been administered orally and Cowley only had Bodie’s word on that as the glass had mysteriously disappeared in the course of MI6’s investigation. The rest of the blood test showed the expected heroin mix, a surprisingly small amount, and also a side note that Doyle was slightly low in iron. Cowley grimaced briefly and moved on to the next report from the taxi company. The driver had been unhelpful, stating only that the lady in question had been dropped off in Coronation Drive and had set off on foot. There was no phone call made from Doyle’s flat that night, although the telecommunications people had added notation that unless it was a connected call, it wouldn’t register. Which meant a phone allowed to ring a number of times before disconnecting could have been a code to move in. Cowley placed the papers into a neat pile.

There were many things Cowley disliked in life. He disliked budget-cutting bureaucrats, he hated terrorists with a passion and he loathed people that preyed on the weakness of others. A strong dislike of drugs was something he shared with Doyle. Cowley shuddered to think of this particular drug being widespread in the community. 

But even more that all of this combined, Cowley hated his men being set up. And it surely was a set up. But a set up on Doyle not Bodie. A grudge. He stared at the papers. But not small time, this grudge. This was someone bigger, someone with high contacts, access to the best. Cowley picked up the phone and ordered the retrieval of Doyle’s arrest records again. They’d gone through them once before, during the Preston case, yet he couldn’t remember anyone matching that criteria from Doyle’s time in the force. Unless they’d come up in the world. Or, unless it wasn’t from that long ago. But then if it were more recent, while Doyle was in CI5, why him and not Bodie? He’d partnered them some years ago now; they worked on most cases together. Perhaps Bodie was the next target? Cowley got up and limped over the drinks cabinet. No one had yet made a move on Bodie so maybe it wasn’t CI5 related either. It could just as easily be someone who had a personal grudge. Cowley poured a neat finger of Scotch, still deep in thought. Who had Doyle pissed off this time?

 

****************

 

They had come for him again. It hadn’t seemed that long since the last time. There was no rhyme or reason to their coming, the only consistency being the screws absent from their rounds. He lay on his bunk, only half aware of what was happening, voices disjointed around him, the gag in his mouth salty and dry. Rough hands held him down, immobile, clammy fingers stroked his arm. He had stopped wondering how they got away with it, but he hadn’t stopped fighting them, his nature impelling him to at least try, although he was inevitably overpowered - everyone from guards to other prisoners indifferent to his fate. No one likes a bent copper. 

But tonight had been the scariest of all. Because tonight, he’d heard them coming and he’d felt anticipation flow through his veins. It had made him fight more fiercely than ever before. 

Yet it made no difference.

 

**************

Cowley had pulled some strings, slapped a D notice on the press and Doyle’s hearing was being held at a small, outdated, almost unused courthouse not far from the prison. The minister had surprisingly agreed to this request, considering his earlier declaration that Doyle was too dangerous to be allowed bail, but Bodie suspected he wanted to keep as low a profile as Cowley did. Leakage of this arrest could cause irreparable damage to CI5, not to mention the Home Office and he was obviously relying on Cowley’s ability to keep Doyle under control. 

Bodie didn’t always agree with the law, but he did his best to uphold it. Doyle was the one with the conscience, with the morals, and it was Doyle that kept his partner’s feet grounded. But watching the court proceedings, feeling their case slipping away, the prosecution bleating about the photographs with outraged condemnation and Bodie could almost feel the hostile glances sent Doyle’s way from where he stood. 

More worrying was the state of his partner. Cowley had produced a suit from somewhere. And a tie, which, as usual, looked as out of place on his scruffy partner as Cowley would in a ballgown. The suit was slightly too big and the collared shirt did not fit snugly. Bodie could see bruises from where he stood, purple fingermarks around the vicinity of that stiff while collar, dark against the pale gold of Doyle’s throat. Doyle fidgeted, restless, at odds with his exhausted appearance. Bodie tried to catch his partner’s eye as the defence barrister began a lengthy speech about the validity of the evidence but Doyle’s gaze skittered all over the courtroom and he shuffled from foot to foot.

Five days. Bodie frowned, watching the out of character performance from the gallery. Five days in that prison and Doyle looked worse than when he’d gone in. What had happened to him in there? He’d known, as had Doyle, that it wouldn’t be a smooth ride, and he’d expected his partner to be a bit roughed up, but not emerging as jumpy as a virgin on her wedding night. 

Beside him Murphy shifted and whispered. “What’s with Doyle, he’s acting like he’s missed his daily vitamin hit.” 

Bodie didn’t answer for a minute and then Murphy’s words penetrated. He watched as his partner shuffled some more, running his hand through his curls in agitation. The defence barrister droned on. Bodie never took his eyes off Doyle, Murphy’s words echoing in his head, as though they held a great significance, and suddenly Doyle switched his gaze and stared right back at him. Sweat beaded on his face and his eyes looked desperate. And Bodie knew, knew with certainty that Doyle was in big trouble.

 

**********

 

Cowley was a man that had a lot on his plate. His workload was enormous and he was answerable to the highest ranking men and women in the country. His job was more often than not distasteful. Necessary but distasteful and his men were subjected to horrors you wouldn’t wish on your worst enemy. Therefore when one of them was set up and incarcerated by the very men his organisation was formed to combat it left a very sour taste in his mouth. The responsibility to clear Doyle weighed heavily on him and Bodie’s fury certainly wasn’t helping matters.

“Six months,” Bodie shouted, stabbing his finger in Cowley’s direction as though Cowley had made the decision himself. “Doyle won’t last another ten minutes in there, never mind six months.”

Cowley looked up, his face lined and tired, but angry. “Aye, I’m aware of it Bodie, I don’t need you to tell me.”

“Something is going on in there,” Bodie hissed. “Something is happening to Doyle in there, we have to get him out.”

“We have to work within the law,” Cowley said and checked his watch. 

“It’s never stopped you before,” Bodie pointed out with alacrity.

“I’ve managed to clean my own house without anyone else getting involved before,” Cowley snapped back. “But this was planned Bodie. Planned very well indeed. The anonymous call to the police, the plant, the disappearance of the glass used, the dead end with the taxi companies. Oh someone big is behind this; you can bet anything else we try will be blocked as well, whether by coercion or bribery. Someone with a lot of power enabled this to happen and he has fingers in high places, you can be sure of that.”

He stalked to the window, calming down, understanding Bodie’s anger quite well. It, after all, matched his own. 

“I’ve asked for him to go into solitary confinement until the trial.” Cowley stared out into the car park. Clouds were forming, bringing an end to the unseasonably clear weather. He was aware of Bodie’s eyes drilling into his back, hot and incensed and sighed heavily. The not guilty plea had been entered but Cowley wasn’t confident that a jury would find him so. It had all been so neatly tied up, Doyle’s unreliable memory the biggest hindrance. Oh he’d remembered falling, figures coming in. Remembered being carried upstairs, the prick of the needle in his arm. Nothing else. No identification, no struggle, no evidence to support what had happened. It didn’t look good. Even believing Doyle without a doubt, Cowley knew it didn’t look good.

He stared at his car parked by the courtroom doors thinking hard, then swung his gaze around to the powerful dark haired agent behind him. A good man, Bodie, tough, efficient and totally ruthless. And with an Achilles heel. “I’ve arranged for us to see him, before they return him to the prison. A special favour. He should be able to assure you he is all right.”

His answer was a slammed door. He sighed and turned back to the window, watching the rain clouds gathering over the far rooftops.

 

************** 

 

Bodie stood in the small lobby, trying to calm down, the sense of something very explosive about to happen creeping over his skin, but not knowing what and he felt a faint surge of adrenaline, preparing him for it. A man and a woman passed behind him, arguing and he moved to stand by the doors, automatically taking in the layout, not surprised that the old courthouse was used for only the most minor offences, it was open to the street, quite small, badly planned and easily accessible. In fact he was reasonably sure that the minister would probably have denied its selection if he’d seen for himself the inadequacy of the place. 

Suddenly Bodie couldn’t stand the closed in rooms any longer. He left hurriedly, jogging out into the fresh air and took some steadying deep breaths. The unseasonably clear day and quiet afternoon light put him in mind of football and crisp evenings and heading home for a hot meal, and he thought bitterly of Doyle, stuck inside, his freedom taken from him on the word of another. Justice! Justice for whom? 

He scanned the car park despondently and a flashing red light caught his attention. They’d come in Cowley’s car, he and Cowley and Murphy, the radio handset was beeping, calling. Bodie trudged over and opened the door, dropping into the driver’s seat. He lifted the mic from its cradle and brought it to his mouth. “3.7”

_“Call for you, 3.7. Wouldn’t give a name, says it’s about 4.5.”_

The weariness vanished in an instant. “Put ‘em through.”

The voice when it came was elderly and quite obviously frightened. “Are you Mr Doyle’s partner?”

“That’s right,” Bodie confirmed. “Who are you?”

“Never mind.” The voice was jittery, breathy as though having second thoughts about this. Terrified. “Mr Doyle, he was good to us, when he was on the force. Helped our son out, got him on the straight and narrow. So we owe him. My old man’s in the nick and he told me to warn you.”

Bodie’s blood ran cold. “Warn me about what?”

“That Mr Doyle…oh you need to get him out of there. They are having an auction. They are going to auction him. He’ll have an owner. Do you know what I’m saying here?”

Bodie froze and he stared unseeing out of the windscreen. He knew all right. He knew what went on in some prison systems and Doyle was fair game until he was owned. And even then, his owner could and probably would, hire him out.

The querulous voice came again, but he barely heard it. “Someone big has set this up and my old man said to tell you. Big enough to make sure he’ll go down. Someone wants him bad… oh…and what they’ve got planned for him doesn’t bear thinking about. You have to help him.”

There was a distinct click and the line cut out. Bodie went on staring out of the windscreen, hands gripping the silent RT unit, the quiet peace of the afternoon shattered into a million pieces.

 

**********

 

The interview room contained a desk and two chairs and was depressingly bleak, despite the large window that displayed its proximity to the front doors and the car park. Bodie stared morosely out of the window. Quite ironic really, how a dirty car park and busy street could designate freedom so effectively in the right circumstances. Silence reigned, the occupants quietly waiting until finally footsteps fell on the tiles outside the door.

Cowley stood with the defence barrister, his face calm and composed despite the bleak outcome of the hearing. Bodie turned from the window and moved to stand behind his boss. His emotions were in turmoil, in agony for his partner. He imagined being locked up in solitary confinement for six months waiting for a trial that by all indications would go against him. He would go stir crazy, no doubt of that, but look at the alternative. Being auctioned for the highest price, owned and used. Bodie had spent much of the last hour trying to figure some way around this. And he’d failed. He’d failed Doyle. And now he’d have to face his partner knowing that.

The door opened and Doyle was led in flanked by two courtroom security men. He’d changed back into his prison issue, the dark blue trousers, denim shirt and jacket, threadbare and old and terribly snug, even for Doyle, as though they were a couple of sizes too small. His partner still looked immensely tired, as though he hadn’t been sleeping and no wonder, Bodie thought savagely, he’d have to keep his guard up at all times, day and night. Busy searching his partner’s face, it took a minute for Bodie to realise that Doyle’s hands were cuffed behind him and that the guards were keeping a firm hold on his arms.

“There is no need for cuffs,” Cowley interjected before Bodie could say anything.

“Sorry sir, court orders,” one of the security men said politely. “He is designated as a high risk prisoner and therefore has to be restrained outside of the holding cells. We don’t usually take high risk cases here sir.”

Cowley glanced briefly at Bodie and nodded. “Aye. Well you’ve escorted him here, now kindly wait outside.”

Both men hesitated fractionally but the barrister also nodded at them and they left the room to take up station outside the closed door. Doyle remained standing, shuffling slightly, eyes red rimmed and as Bodie watched, he tilted his face towards the window, to that warm golden light and Bodie saw the long muscles of his throat flex, as he swallowed.

Cowley gave his agent a hard look but made no mention of his condition, merely said, “We will try and get you an earlier trial.”

Doyle made no acknowledgement and Cowley added, “And I’ve requested solitary confinement for you.”

At that Doyle jerked his head back and gave a soft disbelieving snort. Bodie watched him carefully. It looked like he’d all but given in and that was so unlike the Ray Doyle he knew. His temper flared again and he stepped forward. “Ray, tell us what’s happening to you.”

But Doyle stubbornly remained silent and it dawned on Bodie, that he didn’t want him to know. Didn’t want him to feel useless, powerless to help. For the first time in their partnership, he was unable to watch his partner’s back. He turned back to Cowley incensed. “This isn’t good enough!”

“It’s the law, Bodie.” Doyle spoke for the first time and those bruised eyes came up to regard him dejectedly. “There’s nothing you can do.”

And Bodie knew it. This was outside CI5’s power. Fists clenched, he strode back to the window while the defence barrister explained Doyle’s position to him. Doyle fidgeted, eyes glazing clearly not listening, seemingly unaware of his partner’s intense scrutiny. 

What the hell was wrong with him? Something was being done to him in there, his uncharacteristic behaviour betraying his silence. Had the auction started? Doyle wasn’t sleeping, that much was obvious from his appearance, but was he managing to fight them off? 

Bodie had a sudden certainty, he didn’t know why, that Doyle really wouldn’t make six months. Whoever had set this up wasn’t going to risk Doyle being cleared at a trial. It’d be a hidden knife, a brawl, some sort of accident, but in the end it’d be Doyle’s life. 

He glanced out of the window in desperation, hearing Doyle’s cuffs clinking gently and he saw the last of that quiet afternoon light before it went out, extinguished by the oncoming rain clouds, as though a portent for Doyle’s future. Bodie's eyes dropped again to Cowley’s car, parked by the kerb. His eyes narrowed and he absently patted his pocket where the keys were. 

“But at least it gives us a good six months to get a good case up in your favour.” The QC shuffled papers, finishing his spiel. 

Bodie swung around in agony, the words putting a finality to the whole sorry mess. Six months!

Cowley had been watching him shrewdly, paying about as much attention to the barrister as Doyle had. “I’ll give you two a couple of minute to yourselves, there are some forms for me to sign. I’ll be back shortly.”

His gaze didn’t leave Bodie's face, and he barely looked at Doyle. The door closed behind him. Doyle moved suddenly towards the window, yearning clear on his weary face as he stepped into the natural light. His forehead dropped against the glass as though he could absorb the tantalising glimpse of freedom through his skin. His shoulders twitched, as though to bring his hands around, before remembering that they were cuffed.

Bodie took a hesitant step towards him. “Ray…”

“You can’t do anything, Bodie.” Doyle spoke softly and Bodie was astonished to see a fine shiver start, until Doyle was trembling from head to foot. “Six months inside and I’m finished with CI5, no matter what the verdict is.”

Bodie’s gaze never left him. Doyle’s eyes were closed now, face tilted towards the weak light, and he was swaying on his feet. Bodie’s lips thinned and that sense of something explosive about to happen intensified. He had no idea what he was going to do but Doyle wasn’t going back. Acting on the same sort of instinct that kept him alive in the jungles of Africa, he made his decision on the spot. 

He wasn’t going back! 

He walked swiftly up behind his partner, drawing his gun. Despite his exhaustion, Doyle’s sixth sense was still ably functioning, and he instinctively started to turn. Bodie was faster though and the butt of the weapon took Doyle precisely and expertly on the back of his head. Bodie skilfully swivelled him around before he could fall, bracing the lax body against the window with his own. 

“Sorry, sunshine,” he stooped slightly and pushed his shoulder into Doyle’s midriff, “but it’s for your own good.”

The barrister’s head shot up from his paperwork in alarm, eyes widening. Bodie staggered only slightly as he adjusted Doyle’s dead weight across his shoulder, shifting him so he jack-knifed down, keeping his left arm snug around Doyle’s thighs. The barrister’s mouth opened and then abruptly closed again as he found himself staring straight down the muzzle of a revolver 357.

Bodie’s face was lethal as he straightened up. “Now we can do this the easy way, or we can do this the hard way.”

 

***********

 

Malcolm Bowen-Carter QC would never know for certain afterwards, whether his life had actually been in danger or not. He had been quite aware of the powder keg the agent Bodie had become during the course of the day, and he certainly wasn’t immune to Doyle’s state of health either. From a professional point of view he was also unhappy with the six month remand, and judging by his condition after just five days, was acutely aware that his client was quite likely not to make it back to trial. His case had been thwarted every step of the way by more than one source and he suspected quite strongly that there were outside influences hindering the entire case. Therefore he made no threatening moves and did exactly as Bodie told him. 

He opened the doors of the interview room and kept his back close to the coldly controlled, dark haired man behind him. The two courtroom security men were already moving quickly backwards, registering the gun, unsure of what to do. He saw George Cowley appear out of nowhere behind them, almost as if it were staged and heard him shout; “Don’t be a fool!” Although whether it was to the guards or Bodie, he wasn’t certain.

“He’s not going back!” Bodie snarled, and Bowen-Carter nodded vigorously, not sure who he was addressing but determined to agree regardless. All he knew was that he was being prodded by the gun and no one argued with a man with a gun, no matter which side of the law he was on. 

“And for the record, it wasn’t his idea, it was mine. So if no one stops me, no one will get hurt.”

Bowen-Carter agreed wholeheartedly with that statement as well and then they were moving. Towards the door, towards the car park, to the light of the fading day. The defence barrister kept his hands in plain sight, as Bodie used him for a shield and sweat ran freely down under his expensive suit. He heard the commotion around him but it barely registered, and would wake him in nightmares to come. But somehow the agent, despite his cumbersome burden managed to get the short distance down the corridor to the lobby and the front doors. People scattered, small screams punctuated the air and Bowen-Carter felt the gust of rain as the front doors opened. He was next to a Ford Granada before he knew what was happening and the rear door was opening. 

Then Bodie turned to him, cold, hard but his dark blue eyes were intense. “You’ve seen the evidence, you’ve seen him. He’ll be dead in six months.” 

He waited and finally Bowen-Carter nodded, understanding. He made no move to escape, just watched as Bodie let his burden slide down his torso, cradling him almost gently before shoving the unconscious body clumsily into the back seat. Swearing ripely yet still managing to keep the gun trained, he stuffed Doyle’s long legs in after him and slammed the door. As he quickly inserted himself into the driver's seat, George Cowley and the security guards appeared at the steps, followed by the tall dark haired CI5 agent who had been in the courtroom. Malcolm Bowen-Carter saw him raise a gun and with a dawning horror realised that he was between that loaded weapon and the driver’s door. Then before anything else could happen, the car was gunned away, squealing tyres and roaring engine. 

He stood quite still, knees shaking and his eyes turned accusingly to the head of CI5. Good God, couldn’t the man control his men any better than this. He was about to speak when he saw a brief smile flash across those rugged features and he could have sworn he saw the lips form the words _good lad_ before Cowley abruptly turned away and walked back inside, flanked by his operative.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 5**

Martin Martell was a man of impeccable good taste. He liked quality clothes, he liked fine wine, he dined at expensive restaurants. He was urban, polished and sophisticated, witty and charming.

He was also a gunrunner with questionable sexual preferences and an abiding love of the sea.

Martell made no excuses for the way he was. He didn’t make the world after all, merely tried to live in it. His business activities were profitable but harsh and to compensate, he made an effort to cloak his personal life with as much beauty as was possible, whether it be companionship, the arts, or the simple pleasure of sailing up a river.

His activities dictated a necessary caution, and he was extremely conscious not to lapse into routine, but owning his own boat had been a private dream since he was a boy and he had finally indulged himself. Nearly fifty feet long, she had been lovingly crafted during the dying years of the depression, all long lines and teak decking of a bygone era. Once owned by a silent movie star and large enough to live on, he’d found her rotting away in a backwater, paint peeling, decks splintered, but the plans he had for outfitting her would ensure that there was plenty of comfort to be had, soft furnishings and room to entertain. He stood now on the lower deck where the new galley had just been installed, and gazed at his surroundings with deep satisfaction. There was still a lot of work to be done, but having a working kitchen and bathroom now meant he could spend more time here, could motor up and down the Thames to his heart’s content, could finally relax properly, anonymous in the endless river traffic.

The water lapped gently at the hull and the rain thundered down, but despite his content, old habits died hard, and he was alert enough to hear a car pull hurriedly up outside. This was a small marina, one of several he used to tie up at night and comings and goings were normal, yet he still he kept one ear bent to the wharf, even though Rufus was up on deck, diligently on guard. It wasn’t until heavy footsteps came aboard, followed by a short sharp protest from Rufus, that he reached around for the handgun he kept hidden under the kitchen bench. Rufus’s voice grew louder, there was a distinct thud and then the footsteps came closer, flinging open the cabin door.

Martell stood ready gun pointed and safety catch off. The apparition that appeared made him blink for all of twenty stunned seconds. The first thing he noticed was a very wet, very enticing backside being manoeuvred through the narrow doorframe. Martell had run approving eyes over that particular backside before now, despite its owner’s prickly dislike of him, and it was instantly recognisable, although the tight fitting trousers were extreme even for him. The muscled arm clutching the adjoining long legs was infinitely more familiar and he sighed wearily, lowering the Beretta as a dark head and a lean, dangerous, but oh so attractive face appeared. Instantly his skin tingled. Even after all these years, just the sight of Bodie could still get him going. And Bodie well knew it. That he’d kept the ex-mercenary’s dubious friendship was a miracle itself after he’d found out, but was smart enough to know it would remain for only so long as Bodie had a use for him. He’d long ago accepted it, but still...

“Really, old boy, this is pushing the friendship a tad too far.” Irritation laced his words and yet he shouldn’t have been surprised. He took the utmost care with his comings and goings, his meeting venues and his places of abode. Not even his own mother knew about this refuge, and yet somehow Bodie had found out. How did he do it? They hadn’t had any dealings since the American 180 debacle, and yet here he was, sopping, deliciously wet on his doorstep, his unpredictable partner in tow - out like a light and in handcuffs no less - plainly in trouble again. And although the admittedly distracting sight of a restrained Doyle in that position, wasn’t unappealing, all things considered, he was well aware that it wasn’t for _his_ benefit and vaguely wondered who the volatile agent had pissed off this time. His irritation rose another notch. “How the hell did you find me?”

Bodie paused, panting slightly, adjusting his grip on his lax and by all appearances, half drowned partner. “Used the A-Z, how do you think?”

As though they’d only conversed yesterday. But that was typical of Bodie as well. As sure of his welcome as he was of his attractiveness. Resentfully feeling manipulated, Martell waited a full minute, acutely aware of clothes plastered to firm young flesh, Bodie’s all knowing smirk and the steady drip of water from Doyle’s bedraggled locks, pooling on the polished timber decking. “Your appalling sense of humour was always your least attractive feature dear chap. I don’t recall owing you any favours.”

“Not now, Marty, have a heart. He’s nowhere near as light as he looks, my back’s killing me.” The dark blue eyes were intense, slightly mocking, water beaded on that lean handsome face. Martell finally relented and indicated the small sofa but to his surprise Bodie shook his head. “Somewhere more comfortable mate eh? Perhaps a bit more secure as well. Can’t leave him alone for a minute, can I?”

Which in Bodie’s understated cynical way, meant they were in deep shit and there was no prizes for guessing who was the cause of it. And now it was on his doorstep. Martell glared at that delectable backside, firmly of the opinion that Bodie would do better to find a less troublesome partner, and thereby save himself some grief. But for some inexplicable reason, the ex-merc seemed quite attached to this one, volatile temper notwithstanding. “What happened?”

“He felt like a kip, you got a room with a bed or what?”

Martell sighed, giving in. He’d known he would, the minute he recognised the intruder in the doorway, he always did and Bodie damn well knew that too. Huffily, he led the way, collecting a towel from the bathroom as he passed, ready to mop up the puddles caused by Doyle’s dripping hair.

The cabin for’ard was small, but the portholes were large and the spare mattress took up nearly the full floor space. Eventually the cabin would be outfitted with bunks, but at the moment it was bare and bleak. Bodie looked around and once he saw that there were no curtains at the windows, refrained from turning on the light. The faint illumination from the marina gave the small cabin a soft dim light, barely enough to see by, but Bodie didn’t seem to be perturbed by it. Martell watched as he kicked the mattress towards the hull, where exposed pipes led from the engine room to the wheelhouse above. He then, with a gentleness that made Martell inwardly sigh with envy, lowered his recumbent partner to the mattress, turning him carefully onto his side. The cuffs were visible, firm around thin wrists, Doyle’s fine boned hands and long fingers relaxed against the soaked denim back. Bodie knelt behind his partner, digging in his pockets, patting down his wet cords. “You got keys, Marty?”

Receiving a hostile silence, dark blue eyes flashed over a leather-clad shoulder to glower at him. “I know you’ve got keys, get them, hey, mate?”

Martell looked at Doyle’s sprawled form, the other half of this diabolical team, thinking that it would be far more prudent to leave him restrained, the only sure way to keep the man out of trouble. He’d known Bodie for years, but had only met Ray Doyle once. It had been enough. He had admired the lean hard body; Doyle had disliked him on sight. Later, Bodie had tried to explain… _he doesn’t like gunrunners, it’s nothing personal, mate._ But he’d recognised, even back then Bodie’s affection and respect for his teammate and he’d been jealous of the effortless bond they shared. Still shared if Bodie’s tender ministrations were anything to go by. Yet he could no more resist Bodie asking for help, than he could resist breathing, so he went to fetch his handcuff keys.

Doyle didn’t stir as Bodie unlocked his left wrist from the cuff and Martell watched curiously as Bodie stripped the denim jacket off his partner and threw it in some disgust out of the cabin door. Manoeuvring Doyle, tilting him carefully he proceeded on to both the buttoned denim shirt and the grey T-shirt beneath it. Trainers and socks followed and then he was at the waistband of the snug blue trousers, unzipping and tugging them down, grunting with the effort of peeling the tight wet fabric from Doyle’s thighs, while an enthralled Martell stood in the doorway, mouth dry. These followed the rest of the clothes, flung as though they were tainted with something evil and Doyle was finally reduced to a long naked sprawl in the darkness. Martell was further astonished when Bodie brought Doyle’s right arm up above his head and firmly relocked the cuff around one of the metal pipes against the hull of the old boat. He then watched, mesmerised as Bodie very gently slid his fingers into Doyle’s sopping curls, to cup and probe at the back of his head. Doyle flinched then, in his sleep and moved his head slightly away. Bodie grunted, satisfied and arranged his partner comfortably, making sure the cuff wasn’t too tight.

“You got a blanket or something?” was the next request.

Martell set his jaw, both jealous and embarrassingly disturbed by Bodie’s casual stripping of his partner. “Could find him a teddy bear if you really want to pamper him.”

Bodie’s eyes shot up at that and an amused expression settled on his handsome features. “Only if it’s wrapped around a warm, willing bird. Otherwise he won’t appreciate it. In fact he won’t appreciate much of anything when he wakes up, particularly me.”

Martell looked meaningful at the handcuffs. “I’d say. Some of us aren’t into that sort of thing, Bodie, old chap, and your partner really does have an appalling temper.”

Teeth flashed in the dim light. “He’s cold and wet, Marty, I need to warm him up.”

Grumbling Martell obliged and once Doyle was safely cocooned to Bodie’s satisfaction, they left the cabin, Bodie firmly shutting the door behind him. He moved directly back to the galley, spied the tray of bottles on the bench and reached for the whisky.

”Help yourself,” Martell said waspishly, folding his arms, still caught up in the scene he had just witnessed and knowing full well Bodie wouldn’t welcome the thoughts now tumbling through his head.

Bodie ignored him, poured a measure and slung it down neat. Then he repeated it and as hard as Bodie was to read, Martell suddenly realised that his young visitor was on the edge of exploding. Something had unsettled Bodie, had ruffled that calm, cold control he employed so ruthlessly, and whatever it was, it gave Martell an anxious feeling.

“What’s going on?” he asked again but Bodie made no effort to enlighten him, instead studying his glass with a single-minded intensity.

“Look Bodie, old chap, you had better see this from my point of view. It’s late, it’s hardly _I’m just passing by weather_ , you barge in here after presumably laying Rufus out, your partner is cuffed and unconscious and much as I appreciate his attributes in his normal apparel, this year’s prison look doesn’t do much for him, no matter how tight it is. Then you secure him to my boat rather than taking him to the nearest hospital. Tell me why I shouldn’t call the police.”

Bodie snorted derisively, “You? You call the cops? Come off it, Marty.”

Snatching the whisky bottle from his uninvited guest, he poured himself a healthy slug. “Why is it, Bodie, why is it, that every time you show your gorgeous face, I’m facing outraged law enforcement agencies?”

That earned him a boyish grin and he gave up again, lost. “Fine, how long?”

“I don’t know. Maybe just tonight, maybe a couple of days. I needed a place, mate. A place no one can find us. And you’re good at that.”

“You seem to manage it quite well,” Martell retorted with some asperity.

“Ah well, I always like to keep tabs on old friends.” Bodie replaced his glass on the tray and took a deep breath. “I need to get rid of the car. I’ll be back. Look after Doyle for me.”

He made for the door, scooping up the prison issue on the way and then stopped, as though struck by an afterthought. “Oh and Marty. Keep your hands to yourself, eh?”

Then he was gone and Martell was left, torn between outrage and resignation.

************

 

Bodie drove the Granada as far as he dared, before leaving it parked in an unassuming lane well away from the river. Wet and cold, he jogged down the maze of back streets towards a main road, hoping to flag down a taxi, craving a hot shower, dry clothes and a warm bed all in that order, and resigned to the unlikely event of any them happening. Dry clothes in particular, as his were sopping and Doyle’s prison issue had been abandoned in the back seat of Cowley’s car. His own would dry eventually, but Bodie had decided, once he’d stripped Doyle of the hated garments, that his partner wasn’t wearing them again. For love or money. Which meant Doyle needed fresh clothes, although he dare not approach either of their flats, knowing full well they’d be watched by now. Clothes, money, weapons, all now effectively barred to them. As though they were fugitives. Which he supposed they now were. Bodie rubbed his eyes as vehicles passed by, waiting for the familiar shape of a taxi. He was immensely tired, the arrest, the court appearance, the escape, all catching up with him. And he had utterly no idea what he was going to do next.

Doyle was going to kill him. That much he did know. He firmed his lips and hunched against the diatribe he knew was awaiting him when his partner woke. Doyle was a stickler for the rules, unless it suited him to break them, and Bodie knew full well he’d never go against the law of a court, had known it when he deliberately coshed him on the head and kidnapped him. Doyle had been a policeman for far too long and it had left its indelible mark. Bodie couldn’t give a toss for the law or the court system. All he could see was his partner, beaten and likely worse, suffering in misery for something he hadn’t done.

As he’d driven away from the courthouse that afternoon, Doyle a crumpled unmoving heap on the backseat, he’d racked his brains on where to go, what to do, how to get out of this mess. One thing for sure, there was no going back and his mind worked feverishly, conjuring and discarding possible bolt holes until he’d thought of the one man, the only man who had managed to evade the law for as long as Bodie had known him.

He’d taken a chance with Martell, but he’d been desperate, knowing that MI6 would have all CI5’s flats and safehouses staked out by now. Marty was good at covering his tracks and the boat was perfect in that they could move easily during the night, undetected. It would do anyway, until he could bring Doyle around to his way of thinking and that was going to be a job and half. Not only would Doyle be furious at Bodie’s impetuous action, but he would also be less than pleased to know who his host was, particularly in his current cuffed and naked state.

Bodie recalled with some small amusement the day Martell and his partner had first met. On the Woolwich Ferry, over that stolen American 180. They hadn’t particularly hit it off. Bodie had already enlightened Doyle of Marty’s occupation, a livelihood guaranteed to get his partner’s moralistic back up, but Doyle had also evidently picked up on Marty’s sexual leanings, making that snarky comment about the Vikings robbing the women and raping the men. Bodie had barely been able to keep a straight face as Doyle, temper already fired up over the theft of the weapon, had been barely civil to the arms dealer and Marty’s roving eye and cool assessing glances had only inflamed the situation. Still Marty had come through in the end and he wasn’t a bad bloke all said and done – for a bent gunrunner. At least he’d never pushed the issue, once Bodie had made his stance perfectly clear and he was handy to know.

Covering his tracks well and altering his course frequently, Bodie travelled the remaining block to the marina on foot to be sure. By the time he’d arrived it was nearing midnight and his wet clothes were starting to chafe. Rufus, sporting a spectacular bruise on his jaw glowered at him as he approached but made no attempt to stop him and Bodie squelched onboard, bone weary tired, wanting only sleep now. The warm bed wasn’t going to happen, but he might be able to sweet talk Marty into a hot shower. Hell he could sweet talk Marty into anything.

 

*********

 

Martell nursed his third Scotch not knowing whether to be peeved or not over his assigned task of babysitting the sleeping CI5 agent, who in reality, needed a cage with a padlock, rather than a keeper. Not that Doyle had moved so much as a muscle since Bodie had laid him down and Martell had eased the door open twice during Bodie’s absence to make sure. The long body beneath the blanket slept on, clearly exhausted. Martell had mopped up the puddles of water and retrieved more dry towels for when Bodie returned, wondering vaguely how he was going to get his clothes dry. And of course what to clothe Doyle in once he came to. He smiled, amused at the thought of both of them wandering around naked, but then a noise on deck had his head coming up. He reached for the gun again, but Bodie’s familiar form was at the door, his sleek dark hair wet, plastered to his skull, eyes intensely blue in the bright light of the galley. He put the gun down and made a disapproving sound. “I’ve just mopped all that up.”

Bodie brushed past him and went immediately to the for’ard cabin.

“He’s still out.” Martell said softly. “Really dear boy, what did you hit him with? A bottle of sleeping pills?” He didn’t expect an answer and didn’t get one, waiting patiently while the lethal agent checked his comatose partner for himself.

He came back out of the cabin frowning. “I didn’t hit him that hard.”

Martell was surprised. “You did hit him? Really? Well, dear chap, I can’t say it’s not before time. He is a rather provoking young man.”

Bodie’s head came up guiltily and Martell finally took pity on him. “He’s exhausted, Bodie, I don’t think he’ll be waking up for a long time. Hot shower is through there, there’s a robe on the door. I’ll put the kettle on.”

************

 

It wasn’t the dull overcast light that woke Bodie the next morning, nor was it the cold, snug as he was in Martel’s warm dressing gown and wrapped up in another blanket. Rather it was the gentle clinking of metal against metal and the vibration of a restlessly twitching body on the mattress beside him. Bodie came fully awake in an instant and rolled over onto his knees. Doyle still lay on his side, his right arm stretched above his head, cuffed to the piping but he seemed to be caught in some sort of nightmare, his skin flushed and sweating, the cuff rattling as his arms twitched in response to the images behind rapid eye movement. Bodie automatically reached out to shake his partner awake but Doyle turned slightly, the blanket falling from bare shoulders and Bodie stopped just short of touching him, eyes widening at what that simple act exposed.

Bruises. He’d seen the slight evidence in the courthouse, yes, but the darkness last night had hid the real damage and Bodie sucked in his breath both sickened and angry. They covered Doyle’s neck and shoulders, his biceps and forearms, purple evidence of hard fingers and punishing hands on skin, marking everything but his face. Bodie swore softly, several unwanted images flashing through his mind as to why Doyle wore these bruises, but one thing was clear. The bastards hadn’t wanted anything to show on his face - oh no because then that would have to be acknowledged, wouldn’t it? But under his clothes, oh yeah that was ok, nicely hidden from view. Grimacing at the discoloured damage, he reached out and unthinkingly tugged the blanket down.

And very nearly got one to match. With an abrupt cry of savage denial, Doyle’s left arm came up swinging and startled, Bodie only just managed to block it, and suddenly, cuff or no cuff, he was fighting a lean, tangle headed equivalent of a spitting alley cat.

“Ray, it’s me, it’s me! Stop it.” The fist slid out of his grasp, grazed his chin and Bodie pushed his full weight down, pining the arm immobile, struggling to get free of his own blanket, still wrapped around his legs. “For Christ sakes, Doyle, pack it in.”

Doyle was sheened with sweat; his face absolutely white and Bodie finally kicked free of the blankets enough get his partner's body flat against the mattress. He glared down into the familiar face and nearly reeled back. Doyle’s pupils were huge, black, not contracting in the morning light and he was looking nothing so much as a creature risen from the underworld.

There was a faint movement at the door and Bodie instinctively jerked his head around, letting go of Doyle with one hand to scrabble for his gun, before recognising Martell, resplendent in champagne silk pyjamas and holding the Beretta quite capably in his right fist.

“By all means, don’t let me interrupt you,” the gunrunner murmured, bright blue eyes watching them both with cynical amusement and something else, something Bodie definitely wasn’t going to investigate further. “It was just getting interesting.”

”Knock it off, Marty and give me a hand, he’s having some sort of nightmare.”

Martell came reluctantly forward and gazed down at the still heaving form of Ray Doyle. Bodie now lay across his partner's chest, had Doyle’s left wrist raised and pinned against further damage, but Doyle finally seemed to be coming properly awake. His wide eyes focussed on Bodie first, leaning down to him in concern. “Bodie?”

Bodie smiled at him, still disconcerted by the dilated pupils. “Who else?”

But Martell wasn’t smiling. He was staring at the inside of Doyle’s arms. “Since when do CI5 operatives shoot up, Bodie?”

Groggy as he was, Doyle caught this and his skin flushed, arms jerking against his captor but it was too late. Bodie’s disbelieving gaze shot to the track marks and then back to Doyle, before suddenly letting go and recoiling off his partner, rising gracefully and swiftly to his feet. “What is this?”

Doyle’s eyes closed, hiding those disturbing large pupils and a breath escaped him, almost a sigh. “Bodie what have you done?”

“What have I done? Jesus, Doyle.” And suddenly the bruising made sense. The loss of that famous Ray Doyle spirit in the interview room, the dejection and twitchiness in court. Murphy’s words rang in his ears. _He’s acting like he’s missed his daily vitamin hit._ Doyle’s torso was also covered in bruising, darker around his hips and waist, and his knuckles were skinned. He’d fought them, but then Doyle would. With every ounce of his being. “Who was it?”

Clearly unwell, Doyle curled on his side, clutching the blanket against his nakedness. “Does it matter? It’s done.”

But Bodie had another horrifying thought. “Ray? The auction.”

Doyle’s eyes snapped open to glare at him. “Leave it Bodie.”

Bodie inhaled noisily, fury starkly visible on his face and incautiously said; “Those bruises.”

Doyle erupted from the blankets, jerked sideways by his cuffed wrist, ending up almost on hands and knees. His face came up snarling. “I don’t want to talk about it. Where the hell are we anyway? What did you do? God Bodie, tell me you didn’t do what I think you did.”

“Someone had to do it,” Bodie shouted, suddenly hating the job, Cowley, the law - everything that was responsible for his partner being put through this hell. “You weren’t going back, Ray.”

Doyle groaned, his head drooping, tangled curls falling to hide his white, sheened face. “You busted me…. Oh Bodie.”

It was Martell that saw the signs, both partners too overwrought to notice themselves. He had a large dish beneath Doyle’s face when the exhausted man finally gave up the meagre contents of his stomach and fell back on the mattress moaning, curled up and clutching his abdomen.

“I see his temper has improved somewhat,” he remarked sarkily to the room at large, but before Bodie could respond, he was shaking Doyle’s shoulder. “How long since your last hit dear boy?”

Doyle didn’t answer, hunched into himself, and Bodie finally made sense of what was happening. “Withdrawal symptoms? Christ, they’ve made him a junkie?”

“I would say in all probability,” Martell wrinkled his nose and placed the bowl to one side, ready to snatch it up again at the first sign of heaving. “He’s craving. He needs another hit.”

Bodie glared at him, then he glared at his trembling partner. “Over my dead body.”

“Or over his,” Martell acknowledged gently. “How long has he been using?”

Bodie scrubbed a hand through his hair. “Only a week, if that, in prison.” He bent down to Doyle, turning him over, tapping his face. “Ray, when was your last hit? When? Before court? How long have they been injecting you?”

Doyle struggled against the fiery wanting of his body, only one thought clear in his burning mind. “Bodie… finished with CI5 if they know.”

Bodie’s hands were surprisingly gentle as he soothed his partner. “They aren’t going to know mate, they aren’t going to know.”

 

 

**********

**Chapter 6**

The rain was relentless, driving in sheets from the leaden sky without let up. The small radio beside the cooker spewed flood warnings and road closures, but all Martell could see was the river, flowing past the window, moving and writhing like a oily grey snake and he wondered what had happened to his idyllic cruise up the Thames. Idyllic? Now there was a word. Fantasy visions of bright sunshine and a bare Bodie and Doyle sunning themselves on his upper deck were brutally ripped apart by the harsh reality in his forward cabin. Although Doyle’s protests were quietening down he still didn’t know what was worse, the desperate fight against the craving or Bodie’s helpless fury over the addiction.

Sighing he turned to the kettle, knowing that Ahmed would expect his usual cup of tea after examining his recalcitrant patient. From long practice he got the whisky bottle out for Bodie. Martell had used his considerable contacts and called in several favours to secure Ahmed’s services. A fine doctor but one unacknowledged and unregistered on Britain's National Health Service. Not surprising, since he’d snuck unannounced into the country the back way, fleeing some sort of political mess in Baghdad. It came in handy, if expensive, when unauthorised medical treatment was ever necessary, and this instance certainly qualified. Ahmed was well used to drug addicts, both here and in Baghdad and his silence was both guaranteed and expensive.

Noise finally ceased from the forward cabin and Martell breathed a sigh of relief, aware of his own tiredness. It hadn’t been an easy two days and his close proximity to Bodie had made him taut with tension. Not only because of the man’s undeniable allure, but also because his worry over his partner made him caustic and wary, insisting that they weigh anchor and moor in this inconvenient and remote spot of the river, away from detection.

Carrying his briefcase, Ahmed came down the aisle to the galley, looking remarkably cheerful. And why not, Martell thought with a miserly twist of his mouth. Fifty quid a pop, he’d be happy too. Morosely mulling over the unlikely possibility of reimbursement from CI5 once this was over, he pushed over the cup of black tea and the doctor rubbed his hands, pleased. “Thank you. And most welcome in this miserable weather.”

Ahmed didn’t like the rain and Martell bit back the unfair retort that he could always go back to the desert if it wasn’t to his liking. Instead he asked hopefully; “Is there improvement at all?”

“Oh yes, yes, every day it is better. He has only a slight addiction you understand, not enough to need serious rehabilitation. A bit of rest, some decent food, and the will of Allah and he should be as good as new.”

He didn’t quite share the doctor’s optimism, Allah being a somewhat absent deity in his own personal life. “How long will that take?”

Ahmed sipped his tea and shrugged. “As long as it takes. He is in no danger. His friend, though. He could do with some sleep. I have prescribed some tablets for him.”

Martell was surprised. “And he accepted them?”

“No.” The doctor took another appreciative sip and turned to face the window, gazing at the pouring rain. “He threatened to shove them in a place I would find most painful.”

Martell thoughtfully unscrewed the lid of the Scotch bottle and doubled the dose of whisky in Bodie’s glass.

“But I must be going. I will come again on Friday.” Ahmed drained his tea and collected his raincoat and umbrella from a peg by the door. “Good day.”

Martell sipped his own Scotch and wondered, with a stab of annoyance, whose opinion had decided Doyle needed another fifty pound appointment. Bodie appeared and he noted the dark shadows under the agent’s eyes and the coiled tension in that powerful body. Well that answered that question, didn’t it? Doyle’s restless wanting and cramps had kept Bodie awake all night as well and good as Bodie was at hiding his thoughts, he couldn’t quite hide the worry from those dark blue eyes. Martel pushed the glass gently towards him. “He’s out of danger?”

“Not from me,” Bodie grunted and threw back the Scotch in one go. Martell sympathised. Doyle wasn’t an easy patient, but then that wasn’t altogether unexpected. Doyle wasn’t easy at any time. Fortunately he’d been too weak and shaky to actually do anything other than sleep between the bouts of craving. Most of the waking battles had been around the cuffed wrist, but Bodie had been adamant in it remaining, only allowing Doyle trips to the tiny bathroom as necessary. Doyle had been too ill to fight him, although he’d fought the cuff, enough that Ahmed had been motivated to wrap a bandage thickly around the wrist to prevent further abrasions to the skin beneath. The sleeping battles took more of a toll, the nightmares frequent and terrifying.

Bodie crossed to the sofa and collapsed on it, staring moodily at the darkening sky outside, his handsome profile dark and lean. Martell licked his lips and decided he’d start dinner. So far Doyle had thrown up everything that they’d managed to get him to swallow, but Bodie could do with a good meal. He had some rib fillet, some new potatoes and fresh green beans, courtesy of Rufus, who’d been sent out, unbeknown to Bodie, to get some much needed supplies. By the time he’d finished his preparations and dinner was simmering away, Bodie had succumbed to his exhaustion. Martell shamelessly took advantage of this rare opportunity to drink his fill, from those impossibly long eyelashes, to the tips of his bare feet, poking out of the borrowed snug trousers. A sleeping Bodie looked very young, and quite vulnerable. Martell swallowed heavily and pulled his thoughts away from dangerous waters.

***********

 

_Did you miss me my pet? Did you miss what I do to you? How I make you feel?_

The voice crooned close to his ear, loathsome and hating and rough fingers stroked his straining biceps.

_Soon you will beg for it, soon you will do anything, anyone for it._

Hands held him down; he could feel their bruising fingers on his bare skin. He was wet, his hair dripping; no place was safe from them. He clenched his arm but it was tightly held, immobile and the prick of the needle was familiar now.

_But we must be careful. Barry won’t like it if there’s no fight in you. Soon, you’ll belong to him. And you will do anything he tells you to._

The pressure on his arm tightened as he struggled.

_You won’t escape him, my pet, he is already wanting you, and he is not patient._

“Doyle! Doyle!” Weight on his left shoulder and arm holding him down and the terror escalated, and he heaved and fought, trying to throw the weight off. The reviled voice faded away, replaced by an urgent more familiar one. “Ray! God, wake up.”

And he did, flinching, to stare into shadowed, anxious blue eyes, close to his own. His body relaxed, drained and he could smell the sweat of raw terror on his skin. His head fell back and he felt Bodie cautiously lift off him. “Right now, mate?”

Doyle closed his eyes and tried to control his breathing. Nausea threatened again and Bodie hurriedly pushed him over onto his side, where the ever-present bowl was.

“Christ, Ray, you’re so thin. You have to beat this thing, sunshine.”

The worry was there, and something else now. He tried to lock his skittering thoughts onto it. Regret? Sadness? No not quite. Despair? Bodie and despair? Somehow the two didn’t go together. His stomach churned in time with his throbbing head. Nothing came up into the bowl. He wasn’t surprised, his stomach hollow, empty. But then gentle hands were cupping his head, a glass pressed against his mouth and he raised shaking fingers to drink, encouraged by a soft murmuring voice. The burning in his gut lessened, the buzzing in his head quietened. Doyle closed his eyes and slept.

***********

Bodie gradually came awake to something different. At first he couldn’t put his finger on it and he lay somewhere between sleep and wakefulness pondering it, small and nagging like a whining mosquito. Quiet. That was it. It was quiet. He forced his lids open with great reluctance, his body complaining, urging him to nod off again. He could hear the water lapping against the hull close to his ears but the steady pouring of rain had stopped. He focussed blearily on the still threatening grey skies through the porthole above him. Not for long though. He closed his eyes for a moment savouring the respite and then abruptly snapped them open again. For the past four days, Doyle had woken him consistently with rattling metal and tortured moans, fighting his body’s cravings, the nightmares of his memories. This morning was ominously silent and he turned his head swiftly, panic gripping his belly like barbed wire. Wide greenish blue eyes stared unblinkingly, _unseeing_.

Bodie rolled over, his heart leaping into his throat but the eyes mercifully followed his movement. They were bruised and they were weary but they were alert. Bodie gaped for a minute, the panic still there, still gripping him, but then Doyle’s mouth curved in a wan half smile and Bodie let out a whoosh of breath, feeling relieved and sick at the same time. “Christ, mate, don’t scare me like that eh?”

 

*********

The minister turned from the dismal sky at the window and swirled the amber fluid in his glass. “I thought you said your man wouldn’t run?”

Cowley sipped from his own glass and rubbed his leg, which was aching in the damp weather. “He didn’t. Bodie, however, doesn’t share his partner’s belief in the justice system. Under the circumstances, I can’t say I blame him.”

The minister made a non-committal noise in the back of his throat. “I’ve already had Harold on the phone. Twice. He’s not happy.”

“The man’s a fool,” Cowley said intolerantly and put the glass down on the table. “He should be able to see this as a set up as clear as you and I.”

“He backs his men, the same as you do.” The minister finally left the window and returned to sit opposite his old friend. “I do hope you know what you are doing, George. I’ve put my neck on the line here. Are you sure those boys of yours are capable?”

“Aye, they’re capable,” Cowley deliberately didn’t think of Doyle’s uncharacteristic performance in the dock. Whatever was ailing Doyle, he had the utmost faith in Bodie to sort it out, it was one of the reasons he’d paired them after all. Bodie couldn’t always keep his impetuous partner out of trouble, but he’d guard his back while he was in it. “Doyle is not a pusher, sir, and he won’t like what has been done to him. He has connections with the underworld and he won’t rest until he’s found who framed him. And when he does, we’ll find the link to this drug.”

“Nasty business,” the minister murmured. “What will you do about MI6?”

George Cowley smiled. “Och we’ll let them carry on with their investigation, Minister. That way, they’ll stay safely out of harm's way, while my lads get on with it.”

 

*********

 

Martell carried the tray carefully to avoid spilling the contents. He could hear the argument from inside the cabin and he vaguely wondered if stubbornness was, amongst other unsavoury tendencies, a prerequisite of entry into CI5.

Doyle was sitting up, the blanket clutched around his lean hips. He looked awful, thin and pale as though he was recovering from a near fatal illness. Bodie’s eyes were murderous, his lips tightly drawn as he sat on the edge of the mattress, still in Martell’s borrowed trousers, rumpled now from sleeping in them. Martell could see - even if Doyle couldn’t - that Bodie would win this particular round, the concern for his partner plainly evident beneath his anger. Besides which, he had the handcuff key. The chill air in the cabin sprinkled goosebumps on bare chests and Martell smiled beatifically as he set the tray down. “Breakfast,” he announced, surveying bare skin happily. “Do break hostilities for five minutes, Bodie, dear chap, and get your partner back to health.”

Hot buttered toast wafted through the enclosed space, and he began to pour tea, steamy and golden. Doyle glared at this domestic activity from where he sat. Martell wasn’t surprised to feel the heat of it. Doyle’s firecracker temper was about the only thing keeping him awake and it was a wasted effort directing it at Bodie, who, judging by his lack of response, was clearly accustomed to ignoring it. “Where are my clothes?”

He added milk and sugar to the cup and generously decided that the expanse of bare flesh, even mottled with fading yellow bruises, was worth the accompanying temper. Sick or not, the man still possessed an unknowing allure. “Ask your partner, dear boy, he seemed to think that penal blue wasn’t quite your colour. And I must say, much as it was a visual treat, it’s a wonder you didn’t do yourself damage with the fit.”

He looked up just in time to catch a look of disgust and humiliation cross that expressive face before Doyle dropped his gaze. He glanced at Bodie whose temper was nearly as high as his partner’s albeit more contained. Martell stirred the tea thoughtfully. “They made you wear it?”

Doyle didn’t answer, just closed his eyes, savagely biting his bottom lip, anger emanating in hot waves from every pore. Bodie looked quizzically at him. “Ray?”

Doyle laughed bitterly and pushed his hand through his hair. “Yes they made me wear it. Had to see what they were bidding on, didn’t they?”

“Had the auction started? Had you been sold?” Bodie’s gaze was very direct, very penetrating and Martell saw Doyle flinch, unpleasant memories obviously still very close to the surface. He gave a slight jerk of his head and grimaced.

“No…” he hesitated and wouldn’t look at his partner. “No…they wanted to make me…they wanted me manageable first.” He rubbed the inside of his left arm, face tight with loathing. “But they made me wear a size too small, it would stir them up… get them...” His voice dropped away and he looked very weary again.

Martell laid the spoon aside, in total agreement. Ray Doyle in very tight clothing would drive some of the lifers crazy all right. Not his scene though, and he had a thought that Bodie might actually have been judicious in his mad abduction of his partner.

“Well you aren’t wearing it anymore,” Bodie said fiercely. “Because you’re not going back.”

Doyle jerked on the cuff, temper exploding and Martell watched, fascinated with the sheer energy of the man who by rights shouldn’t have any at all. “So I’ve just exchanged one prison for another? Is that what you mean? You’re going to leave me chained here?”

“And rid you of that poison in your veins while I’m at it,” Bodie reminded him coldly. “I’ll take off the cuff when you give me your word that you won’t hand yourself in.”

Doyle sagged unexpectedly as though all the fight had gone out of him in that one brief burst. He looked exhausted, and it was obvious he was far from fit. “I can’t, Bodie.”

Bodie shrugged, and there was no backing down when he said, “Then you stay here, like a good boy, while I do it.”

Doyle’s head came up again, clearly baffled, “Do what exactly?”

Bodie rolled his eyes in exasperation, as though addressing a simpleton. “Go find whoever’s responsible of course. Prove you innocent.”

Martell glanced across to Doyle and saw those green-blue eyes widen in disbelief. “What about the court’s decision?”

“Sod the court,” Bodie’s slower temper finally ignited. “What sort of law would put you in the nick for six months before even finding you guilty? Cowley said someone big set you up, mate, and the law isn’t going to help there. It’s up to us to do this.” He stopped, scowling at his partner. “Well up to me, since you’d rather sit there decorating the wall.”

And such a lovely decoration too, if it wasn’t for that ferocious look on his face. Martell glanced from man to man, fascinated with that spark, that abrasiveness, rubbing with all the friction of a matchstick on a rough surface, with the inevitable result.

The tea went cold.

************

He’d had an appointment with a minor sheik in exile and the journey across the sodden city had taken him longer than expected. The rain was a bloody nuisance, snarling traffic and congesting the pavements as people tried to dodge around ever enlarging puddles. Martell secured the deal for fifty Uzi’s and arranged the shipping details, highly pleased with the transaction, but he was nevertheless aware of the threat his uninvited guests posed for his business and had no wish to lose contacts just because CI5’s finest were arguing like bickering children in his forward cabin. With that in mind he thoughtfully purchased a few extra items and was back on deck by two o’clock. Rufus nodded to him, but otherwise the boat was silent.

He dropped his purchases on the kitchen counter and went to check on his patient, letting out a breath of relief to see Doyle sound asleep, curled on his side, blanket clutched tight around him, right arm still pinned to the piping. He’d needled Bodie about that, when he’d gone out earlier that morning. Asked him what he’d do if the boat sank. Bodie had given him a look that quite plainly told him not to sink the boat and then had gone. He watched Doyle for a while, noting how uncharacteristically angelic the agent looked in slumber, and knowing quite well that the drugs being purged from his system were responsible for him not waking at the intrusion. Bodie was right to worry about his partner in this state. _Easy prey_.

He closed the door thoughtfully and went to make tea and toast, hoping to tempt Doyle’s appetite, now that Bodie wasn’t here antagonising him. Mind you, he thought darkly retrieving the toaster and plugging it in, Doyle didn’t need Bodie needling him to unleash that street-smart scorn. Noooo, Doyle could do that all by himself. And the littlest things could set him off, too. Springing him from the nick, for example. Purging heroin from his veins, for another. Being served tea and toast by a bent gunrunner while cuffed to a boat. Quite unreasonable really, if you thought about it.

The kettle whistled, signalling the desired temperature and he fished out the teapot and selected the English Breakfast Leaves. He heard the telltale clink of metal on metal as he was heating the pot, but took his time loading up the tray, hardening his resolve as he returned to the cabin. A low moan greeted him and Martell frowned. Another nightmare. And no Bodie to break it. He set the tray down and regarded the restless body, mindful of Doyle’s lightning fast left fist. He’d watched Bodie lean on his partner to wake him, holding him down, preventing the retaliation his touch provoked, but Bodie wasn’t here and Martell wasn’t at all sure that Doyle would be understandable of his intent, were he to do the same. In the end he stood at the end of the mattress and loudly shouted, “Doyle!”

It did the trick and Doyle surged upright, only to be yanked back down by the metal bracelet around his right wrist. He swore horribly and lay still for a minute, adjusting himself to the rude awakening. A fine layer of sweat coated his skin and despite the damp chill the room felt closed in and muggy. Martell waited patiently, seeing the long legs kick free of the blanket in an attempt to cool his body down. His brows rose appreciatively but Doyle was, for the moment, unaware of him.

“Lunch?”

He watched as the wide eyes finally sharpened, acknowledging his presence and the nose sniffed, identifying the aroma of hot buttered toast. Doyle hoisted himself up carefully and pulled the blanket back across his lap, bending one leg up and planting his foot on the mattress. He sprawled against the hull, gazing up with something very close to his usual mischievous expression. Martell busied himself pouring tea and trying to keep his unwanted thoughts from showing on his face.

When his recalcitrant patient reached to accept the hot tea, he was pleased to see the shaking significantly improved, the long fingers only trembling slightly as they closed around the cup with surprising adroitness for a right-hander. “How are you feeling, old chap?”

Doyle raised the cup to dry lips and considered the question thoughtfully, head on one side. “Ok. At least I feel clearer, not so…” he shrugged slightly, struggling to locate the word he wanted and eventually settled on “needy.”

“The craving should be settling down now, according to Ahmed.” Martell sipped his own cup, wary now that the agent was improving. The man was Bodie’s partner and Martell knew enough about Bodie to know that he’d never have a lesser man than himself in that position. He wouldn’t put it past Doyle to figure a way to get free and wondered uneasily what the volatile agent would try. He didn’t know Doyle well, but he’d guess at almost anything. Doyle shifted again, stomach muscles flexing and Martell smiled into his cup wryly. Well almost anything.

“Where’s Bodie?”

He looked up. Doyle had snagged a piece of toast and was making a decent enough job of eating it. He placed his cup back on the saucer. “Out, looking for a woman, he said.”

Doyle chewed and eyed him suspiciously, but took another mouthful of tea before enquiring, “What woman?”

Martell shrugged annoyed. “How do I know, dear boy, Bodie has singular appetites. I can assure you I have no idea what he sees in women.”

If he’d meant to discompose the tough ex-policeman he was sadly mistaken. Doyle swallowed his mouthful and raised a brow. “He’s out getting his leg over, leaving you to baby-sit me?”

Ah here it comes… Martell was unsurprised, but still vaguely disappointed he’d decided on this path, after all, another one would have virtually guaranteed him success. “Wrong tactics, old chap, you used the wrong, er…pardon the pun….carrot to dangle there.”

To his surprise a low earthy chuckle escaped from the throat of the reluctant prisoner. “I’ll just bet.”

Martell looked at him carefully. Unlike Bodie, Doyle was easy to read. The indecision about his current situation was quite plain on his face as he ate the last piece of toast, staring up at the porthole.

“Of course if he doesn’t come back, you’ll be in trouble.” He watched satisfied as Doyle’s head swung back, eyes questioning. Martell nodded at the metal bracelet. “He has the key. So even if you bat your pretty eyes at me, it won’t do any good.”

The pretty eyes in question narrowed dangerously, that appealing face hardening and Martell was abruptly glad the man was restrained.

“What do you mean _if_ he doesn’t come back?”

“Really Doyle. He’s out trying to prove you innocent. Everyone will be against him. He’ll be wanted by the police by now, he’s on the run from your own organisation and if he has any loyal friends in that cesspool of criminal life you both work in I’ll walk naked to China. And there’s no-one guarding his back while you’re sitting here arguing with your morals.”

The movement was unexpected and lightning fast, Doyle erupting from the blanket, to reach for him and he stumbled back in reflex, falling in an undignified manner onto his backside. Again the cuff prevented Doyle from gaining his feet and he bit off a cry of pain, before falling back to slump on his heels against the hull. Martell scrambled back, his eyes drawn to the furious man, crouched, all naked hard muscles in the dim overcast light, his eyes flashing with dislike. And something else. Something close to panic.

 

******

Bodie had to admit defeat. His expertise ran more to weaponry, his contacts vast and varied in that field, and, in this situation, about as unhelpful as a nun in a brothel. Doyle was the one with the drug contacts, his knowledge of the London underworld gained from years of experience. On both sides of the law. Whoever planted that stuff in his flat wasn’t likely to be a gunrunner, not with a dead girl thrown into the bargain, but to go alone into that labyrinth of criminal activity wasn’t the best move he could make, not even for someone of his ability. He needed Doyle’s help and his annoyance with his partner’s stubborn determination to hand himself in warred with the fact that Doyle wasn’t fully recovered to go gallivanting around in dangerous territory anyway.

He wasn’t looking forward to the reception when he returned, but he was also aware that he had the only key to the cuffs and Doyle had been locked to the hull since their battle royal that morning. Course, Marty would be there and Bodie’s lips smiled at the thought of Doyle battling wits with the flamboyant arms dealer. Oh Marty hid it well of course, hid his lifestyle well for that matter, but Bodie was under no illusions to what Marty would like. He had a thought that Doyle would be less tolerant of any advances however, particularly after his stint inside - and with one arm tethered or not, he could still do damage if he put his mind to it, and they really did need Marty for a bolt hole, whether they liked it not.

Rufus came out of the wheelhouse, but when he saw it was only Bodie, he went back inside again, settling down in a chair and picking up his paperback. Bodie wondered briefly where the man slept. He didn’t look Marty’s type and there wasn’t room in that narrow bunk for two grown men anyway. A deckhand come guard by the look of it. And not a very good one. Bodie pushed the thought aside, Marty wasn’t a fool. Whatever function Rufus provided, he had to be good at it. He squelched past, the soaking rain relentless and he dropped to the lower deck, calling out softly to announce himself.

“Bodie!” The cry came out sharp and urgent and Bodie’s training took over instantly. He drew his weapon and kicked the door open, flattening himself to the side, swiftly bringing the revolver up, ready to start firing. Martell looked up startled, in the middle of pouring a drink and Bodie stared wildly around looking for the threat.

“Bodie!”

He was running for Doyle’s cabin before the second cry finished, bursting in, gun up and trained. Doyle crouched there, naked and shivering against the wall, looking so much like a cornered wild animal that Bodie’s heart gave a slight lurch, wondering if he’d ever get his partner back whole again. “What? What is it?”

“Get me out of this cuff, damn you.”

Bodies brows shot up and he holstered his weapon, wryly acknowledging that at least the firecracker temper still seemed to be capable of firing up, but it remained to be seen what else could be coaxed back of Doyle’s normal temperament. He eyed his partner uncertainly. Doyle could do with a shower. His normally fastidious partner’s hair was lank and bedraggled, his stark ribs heaving. He sniffed cautiously, stale sweat and the sharper scent of illness palpable in the small cabin. “What’s with you?”

“What the hell were you doing? You want to get yourself killed? Larking about after some woman with MI6 on your tail!”

Bodie tilted his head to one side, recognising that wild feral look on his partner’s face. Doyle was finally fighting. He didn’t know what, but he was fighting nonetheless and it cheered him no end. “I was trying to find that girl. That Katie. She’s the proof, Doyle.”

Doyle glared at him, both hands curling into fists. “Leave it, Bodie. There’s no sense us both being put away.”

“Can’t, mate.” The statement was simple and honest and Doyle groaned softly.

“Let me go, Bodie.” The plea was softer now, resigned.

Bodie shook his head and squatted down to the same level. “Give me your word, Doyle.”

Doyle shoved his hair from his eyes, glaring at his partner. “We’ll both be hunted.”

Bodie grinned, a sharp untamed grin. “Not if we’re the hunters. We can do this, Ray.”

Doyle leaned against the hull and closed his eyes resignedly, the fight vanishing just as quickly as it had appeared. Bodie stood up abruptly. “Right, I’ll just get some tea and then I’m going out again. Don’t know any contacts around Fulham, do you?”

He watched as his partner’s head came up, inquisitiveness slowly overriding the resignation. “Why?”

“Because that’s where the cab let her off. She walked from there.” Bodie raised his brow, watching Doyle shrewdly. “Affluent area, Fulham, and Cowley said it was someone big wanting you put away.”

Doyle frowned, and Bodie, sensing burgeoning interest bored in ruthlessly. “Remember that drug they used on you, mate? The one where you couldn’t move? You want that on the streets? You want that used against us? We’ve got to stop it, no one else is going to.”

“The girl!” And Doyle’s voice growled with frustration and remembered fear. “She slipped it to me.”

“Need the proof though, don’t we?” Bodie reminded him, pushing harder at his partner’s intrinsic curiosity. “Must be some way of finding her.”

“Where did you pick her up anyway?”

Bodie didn’t smile. But it was an effort not to. “In the pub. Said she’d been stood up. Planted there obviously. But she knew a bit too much about air hostessing for me to think it was all entirely made up.”

There was a taut silence, before Doyle finally said; “Could make a trip to Heathrow, get on to the staff files, see if anyone with a first name of Katie was rostered on an incoming flight.”

He looked up, as though to add something else and saw Bodie smiling gently at him. He sighed heavily and stared up at the darkening sky for nearly a minute, before sliding his eyes back towards his smug partner. “All right, all right. I give you my word that I won’t hand myself in. Now take the bloody cuff off and let me have a shower before we both pass out.”

 

************

 

“Marty old chap, one day you are going to make some man very happy.” Martell told himself under his breath as he extracted a glass dish of lasagne from the oven. If any of his clients could see him now his reputation as a hard dealing gun runner would be shot to shreds. Thank God no one knew about the boat. Well no one except Bodie, and he shot a malevolent glare at the operative, still in the dark as to exactly how Bodie had found out.

The shower was running and Martell managed not to think of Doyle soaped up and wet, skinny state and all. He had less success with Bodie who was stripping off his soaked jacket, crossing to hang it on the peg by the door to dry. He stopped what he was doing, watching the broad shoulders flex under the damp shirt, the straps of the shoulder holster emphasising their width. He shook his head ruefully. Christ, he really needed to go find someone, someone preferably young and nubile and get rid of this frustration.

With effort he ignored the man prowling around the room and began to serve out food. The shower stopped and Doyle emerged, towel dangerously loose around lean hips, hair dripping, face glowering, exuding an enticing aroma of shampoo and warm flesh. Martell paused, ladle suspended over the dish and his eyes glazed over. Doyle gave him an unfriendly look and addressed his partner. “What did you think I was going to wear then, when you took offence at the prison blues and tossed them out?”

Martell wished at that point he’d had a camera. Bodie’s mouth opened, as though to speak and then shut it again, a sheepish smile pulling at his lips. “Er, well….” He shot a quick glance sideways and Martell could almost see him comparing the two of them, measuring them for a clothing fit. He put the ladle down and held his irritation. God knew the pair of them did it on purpose. He was taller than Doyle and heavier and he hadn’t brought that many clothes down with him and said as much.

Bodie coughed apologetically. “Sorry, mate, I’ll nip out in the morning and pick you up some threads.” Then, unabashed, he grinned wickedly. “Can’t have you wandering down Piccadilly Circus like that, can we? Cause a sensation you would.”

His partner gave him a withering glare and Martell was just about to mention the package on the counter, when Doyle grumpily sat down at the small table, still clad only in his bath towel and a few decorative goosebumps. Martell shut his mouth with a snap. Queer he may be, a fool he wasn’t. All in all, he thought as he dreamily shut out their bickering, it was a very pleasant meal.

 

*********

 

Bodie had removed his own damp clothing, donned the spare pair of Marty’s trousers, snug though they were and flopped down on the mattress heavily, wrapping his blanket around him. “You didn’t eat much, sunshine.”

Doyle was idly running a finger along the fading track marks in his arm. He’d been drowsing over his coffee not twenty minutes ago and now he was wired again, the faint craving twisting his belly. He didn’t want Bodie to know.

“Still a delicate stomach like yours, used to all that yoghurt and vitamins… wouldn’t stand a chance against Italian would it?”

Doyle shuddered slightly, his skin prickling, his stomach rebelling against the food now, nausea rising. He wrapped his own blanket around him and lay down, hating his helplessness, hating the betrayal of his own body, the insidious tendrils of yearning crawling through his veins. He shut his eyes and clamped his teeth against it. More than anything, he wanted to feel normal again.

Despite his best intentions, Bodie was aware of his struggle; he could feel those dark blue eyes boring into his back. He turned slightly and looked over his shoulder. His partner was very solemn in the faint light through the windows.

Doyle let a half smile pull at the edges of his mouth. “Go to sleep, Bodie. I’ll do.”


	3. Easy Prey

**Chapter 7**

 

Heathrow was the world’s busiest airport and Doyle and Bodie were well familiar with its layout, having extradited and retrieved certain persons of interest, numerous times over the years. Aware of standard procedures, it was highly likely that their photos, accompanied by warnings, had been circulated throughout the terminals, staff alerted to the possibility of them leaving the country. As if, Bodie had pointed out scornfully, they’d do it through Heathrow. Their intent however, was not the check-in desks, but rather the airline offices on the upper floor, and the staff rosters held there. And with a bit of luck, any warnings may have skipped the back office staff.

Bodie glanced at his partner as Doyle’s long legs quickly traversed the tiled area, heading for the staff only door at the end of the terminal. Doyle looked subtly different and Bodie grinned, wondering how on earth Martell had pulled it off. Still thin, still pinched looking, and far from form, yet Doyle looked a million dollars as evidenced by the many female heads turning to follow his progress. The tight jeans, clean and new, fit like a glove. The fine silk shirt, reminiscent of the fashion houses of Italy, clung in all the right places and the expensive off white woollen jacket accentuated his broad shoulders and lean hips. It was Doyle’s own distinctive scruffy style, however the higher quality materials gave him a cosmopolitan air, and although Bodie wasn’t surprised that Martell’s roving eye had guessed Doyle’s size so accurately, he was surprised that he’d managed to resist the temptation to doll Doyle up to his own preferred mode.

Doyle had been less than gracious for the gift, particularly once he realised that he had sat around half naked for most of the night unnecessarily - his scathing comments and hostile glares dreamily ignored by their host, who was blissfully intent on admiring the result of his haute couture. The clothing was expensive, Bodie could see that a mile off even if Doyle couldn’t, or more likely didn’t care and knowing full well Martell’s inability to consider inferior quality, wouldn’t have been at all surprised if the labels read Armani. The arms dealer had even managed to procure a clingy knit shirt and dark blue cords, presenting them to him with a wholly innocent expression and a showy flourish. After nearly a week feeling damp to the bones, Bodie was just grateful for dry clothes, he even forgave Marty deliberately getting his trousers just a tad tighter than he would normally wear.

“Your girl could have been wrong you know,” Doyle reminded Bodie as they disregarded the staff only sign and pushed open the door, both of them wary and tense, eyes flicking constantly in all directions, alert to the possibility they were being monitored. The British Airways office was at the top of the stairs, its red, white and blue insignia painted on the glass doors.

“Not Donna,” Bodie disagreed as he followed Doyle up the carpeted steps. “She only knows how to do two things well. And air hostessing is one of them. If she reckons Katie is a BA air hostess, then I’m inclined to believe her. I can’t remember what it was she picked up on, some sort of in-flight thing that is standard on BA, but no other airline does it. It was the only thing Katie let slip. Which means…” Bodie pulled the glass door to the office open, “she’ll be on the roster for that night.”

Doyle didn’t argue, his partner’s knowledge of airhostesses beyond question. Besides, they had nothing else to go on. His skin was prickling again, firing, and he shoved his hands in his pockets hoping Bodie wouldn’t notice, cursing Bill Haydon a thousand deaths. Christ, how long would this last?

The pretty girl on reception wore a bored expression, industriously applying a nail file to a perfectly manicured hand. Bodie sized her up with one glance. If she could do sixty words a minute on that typewriter, he’d take Cowley to dinner. He waited patiently until she deigned to look up and when she did a double take at the twin apparitions in front of her, he was smugly confident that it wasn’t from recognising a mug shot. She smiled invitingly. “May I help you?”

Doyle, impatient and bristling, stepped back, leaving Bodie to it. Accordingly, Bodie turned on the charm and leaned nonchalantly on the edge of the reception desk. “I certainly hope so. I’m David Bentley, CI5.” He flipped open his ID, made by the best forger Martell could find on short notice, and while not perfect it would suffice, particularly as the girl wasn’t even looking at it, her round eyes fixed with open admiration on the dangerously attractive man in front of her. Bodie grinned in acknowledgement, giving her the once over as tucked his ID away, then at a sharp reminding nudge from Doyle said; “We have a small problem we’d like to clear up. May we have access to your staff rosters?”

The girl finally pulled her gaze away and glanced over to Doyle. He winked at her and lifted a corner of his mouth and absurdly charmed, she smiled back showing a set of engaging dimples. “Miss Johnson normally looks after those, I can page her for you?”

“Yes please,” Bodie agreed, half turning to steal a look at Doyle as the girl picked up the phone, pressing an extension number. Doyle had wandered over to a wall of awards, soft Italian leather making no noise on the blue carpeted floor. Bodie idly wondered why Marty had chosen boots instead of catering to Doyle’s penchant for scuffed trainers, although Doyle didn’t seem to mind them. Far more practical in the rain he supposed.

The girl was speaking softly and Bodie kept half his attention on her and half on Doyle, straightening up the instant he saw his partner stiffen. He was at his side immediately and Doyle pointed to a large frame showing a number of small photographs, all recent employees of the month. One was of a dark haired girl, dressed in the British Airways uniform, Katherine Bell. Bodie frowned uncertainly. The award was issued six months before and he wasn’t sure of the likeness. This girl was not as slim, her face still round with puppy fat, her eyes alight, her mouth smiling. Healthy. The word came unbidden to his lips. Katie had been beautiful, but thin, lines at the corners of her mouth, gaunt shadows in her cheeks. He glanced at Doyle. Doyle’s eyes were hard and his fingers unconsciously stroked the inside of his left arm. Doyle was good with faces, his time on the force, cementing a seemingly natural talent for observation. If Doyle thought it was her, then it likely was.

The internal door behind them abruptly opened and an older woman stepped out. Her hair was up in a no nonsense bun and glasses perched on her nose. “Yes, can I help…?” Her words trailed off as she gazed at them both, eyes shrewd, knowing, _recognising_. Bodie tugged on Doyle’s sleeve, but Doyle was already moving towards the stairs.

“Our mistake,” Bodie said winsomely as he followed his partner. “Sorry.”

They were clattering down the stairs as she picked up the phone. Security guards were rushing their way when they spilled out of the lower door and they peeled off through the crowds, hurrying but not running, keeping cover within the deluge of humanity hastening towards waiting planes. Ducking behind a large group of Japanese tourists they made for the outer doors to the car park, where they broke into a run and didn’t stop until they collapsed into the small brown Escort Martell had found for them.

Doyle was gasping, hunched forward arms clutched around his stomach. Bodie spared him a glance before turning the ignition key and backing out. He didn’t relax until they were following a hotel bus onto the A4. “That was close.”

Doyle moaned and clutched tighter. Bodie kept one eye on the road and the other on Doyle. “You all right?”

Doyle took a deep breath and forced his body upright. He gave a tight nod, but didn’t relax, sitting as taut as a bowstring.

“You need more rest, Ray.” Bodie had been against them going out today but he had known the minute he’s piqued his partner’s curiosity that Doyle would want to get on with it. He’d been restrained for nearly a week and was driven near to distraction cooped up in the cabin.

Doyle didn’t answer, but Bodie became aware of him gradually relaxing, tilting slightly to lean against the window, eyes closing to a light doze. He looked ghastly and hadn’t fooled Bodie for an instant, the tension and yearning practically oozing from his skin. Craving. Bodie clenched his jaw, hating the bastards responsible all over again for putting him through this hell. He had the utmost faith that Doyle would beat it. It was in his nature wasn’t it? Stubbornly fighting long after everyone else had given up. Bodie refused to think otherwise even now, with Ray looking like warmed up corpse. That doctor, that Ahmed bloke, he’d said it was a light craving. If that were true, Bodie would hate to see a serious one. He glanced across as he negotiated a roundabout but Doyle seemed quite oblivious to his concern.

Bodie drove until he reached a residential area, where he pulled up at a phone box. The car stopping jerked Doyle abruptly awake, blinking in surprise. Bodie turned off the engine and looked at his partner. “I think it’s time we let George know what we are doing, don’t you?”

“Cowley?” Doyle said in disbelief. “You are joking?”

Bodie smiled at him, a rare genuine smile. “Oh I think Cowley is well and truly on to us. He let me walk out the court room with you, didn’t he?”

********

 

The mobile van parked in a side lane in Soho ostensibly sold tea and coffee to late night revellers. If, that is, you could call the dirty coloured liquid that came from the large silver urns tea and coffee. CI5 agents knew better than to actually drink the stuff, as usually the unlucky operative assigned to the unpleasant, but necessary duty would in retaliation, go out of his way to make the beverages as unpalatable as possible. And they knew better than to complain about it if they did, particularly with the current attendant, who was built like a brick outhouse and well known for his lack of humour. Stan Leslie had drawn the short straw this month and he wasn’t happy about it. Wearing a dirty apron and a scowl to put off even the most inebriated reveller, Leslie stepped carelessly around the two men under his feet eliciting an occasional yelp as his size elevens trampled vulnerable metatarsals not quick enough to shift out of his way.

With relief they finally heard the familiar plummy tones of their boss asking for a cup of tea, white, no sugar. Leslie efficiently placed a thick-rimmed white cup under the spout of the urn and steaming golden liquid gushed forth. He reached for the milk and Bodie adroitly moved his leg just in time.

“I don’t want to know where you two are holed up,” came the terse Scots voice, addressing all his attention to Leslie, who nodded as though agreeing to the appalling weather. “But I do want to know what progress you’ve made this week.”

“We’ve got the name of the girl, sir,” Bodie said softly. “Katherine Bell. Air Hostess for British Airways, that was legit at least. But we were recognised before we could get any details.”

“Aye your mug shots have been distributed across every airport, terminal and sea port in the country, not to mention the Met,” Cowley observed dryly. “You need to keep a low profile.”

“Any lower and we’d be underground,” Bodie muttered to his partner and Doyle gave a soft grunt of acknowledgement

The hot cup of tea was placed on the counter and pushed across, exchanged for a few coins. Cowley looked up at the grumpy Leslie and said; “How are you, Doyle?”

Bodie could feel Doyle fidgeting all along his left side where they were crammed into the narrow passageway, between a carton advertising Walkers Shortbread and Leslie’s solid legs but his partner answered steadily enough. “I’m ok, sir. Better, anyway. Did you find out what that drug was?”

“Something new, Doyle, something dangerous and something still in the experimental stages. I would say that you were the perfect guinea pig, lad, and I don’t want something like that loose on the streets.” He took a cautious sip from his cup and grimaced at his surly operative. “Good God, man, you call this tea?”

Leslie shrugged, still rankling at being tea boy for the month. “Budget cuts,” he said shortly and Bodie grinned up at him.

“It’s important we stop this,” Cowley went on, reaching for the sugar bowl, aware that MI6 probably were tailing him, and keeping his gaze on Leslie. “And I can’t be seen to be helping. The girl is the key. Leave her to me; I can visit her in an official capacity. You two do what you can from your end. Do whatever it takes to stop that drug becoming loose. Find the supplier.”

“You don’t mind if we clear Doyle’s name while we’re at it?” Bodie asked sarcastically.

“It will lead to the same thing, Bodie,” Cowley told Leslie and the agent nodded and said, “The weather could clear by the weekend.”

Cowley ignored Leslie and thoughtfully stirred his tea. “Your grudge has friends in high places, Doyle, he won’t be happy that you are loose. You can guarantee he’ll have his friends in low places looking for you as well.”

He took another experimental sip, made a face and pushed it away. “By the way, you are both suspended until further notice.”

Footsteps receded into the traffic and Leslie wiped down the counter with a filthy rag. The partners stayed where they were.

“Two tails,” Leslie observed, putting away the milk. “Give it ten minutes to be sure.”

Bodie sighed and quickly moved his toes away from Leslie’s boots.

**********

George Cowley alighted from his car to an affluent property, in Kensington. Marcus Bell was a successful businessman, and he liked to display it. The house was well kept, freshly painted, surrounded by manicured gardens, and it beckoned welcomingly from the top of the curved driveway. Cowley wasn’t impressed. He dealt with many different people from many walks of life, and wasn’t intimidated by wealth. A butler opened the door and ushered him politely into a small sitting room to the left of the foyer. It was pleasantly decorated, an open fire, soft furnishings and framed photographs on the mantelpiece. Cowley wandered over to see a series of photos, chronologically documenting two girls from baby to young adults. They were remarkably alike, long dark hair, round happy faces, with perhaps five or so years between them.

The door opening had Cowley turning back to see a grey haired man enter the room. He was of medium height, barrel-chested and his face showed the unhealthy glow of too many gin and tonics, too many nights spent indulging himself at his club. Cowley didn’t move, instead he reached out to run one finger gently down the silver frame of the most recent photograph. “Pretty girls.”

Marcus Bell stiffened and Cowley caught it, lifting his eyes back to the businessman in query.

“Yes, Clare is doing well at school. We have high hopes for her.”

“And…?” Cowley indicated the older girl with a raised brow.

“Air Hostess. British Airways,” The words were forced out, clipped and abrupt, then the man seemed to recall his manners. “But I doubt you are here to discuss my daughters, Mr Cowley.”

 

“On the contrary,” Cowley murmured and picked up the photograph, handling it with care. Katherine and Claire Bell gazed out, smiling, happy, their arms around each other. “I’m very interested. Particularly in your daughter, Katherine. It is Katherine isn’t it?”

Bell stared at him, a small muscle jumping in his cheek and Cowley went on ruthlessly. “Does she still live here?”

“No she does not.” Politeness ceased and Bell’s hard grey eyes turned frosty. “I haven’t seen her in months. She has her own life now, with her own friends.”

Cowley heard the anger, heard the embarrassment. What he didn’t hear was any parental care or concern. He stared at the image in his hands. It wouldn’t be the first time a child looked for something she couldn’t find at home. He suspected Katherine Bell found much more than she bargained for.

“Were you aware, Mr Bell,” said Cowley replacing the photograph carefully to its place on the mantelpiece, “that your daughter has not turned up for work for three months?”

Bell hesitated, but the grey eyes didn’t soften. “Yes of course. The airline phoned me. They were concerned.”

“And you?’ Cowley pressed. “Were you also concerned?”

“She made her bed.” The denunciation was all but spat out. “I have no idea where she is. Now if you will excuse me, Mr Cowley. I have an appointment and I am already late.”

 

*************

Bodie emerged, accompanied by a cloud of steam, from the shower, skin flushed rosy from the hot jets of water and feeling warm for the first time all day. Automatically looking around for Doyle, he went aft to the galley, mind on a hot drink. His partner was sitting cross-legged on the sofa, barefoot and denim clad, his bright gaze on the window watching the relentless rain. He was eating an apple, jaw working industriously and Bodie was pleased to see some semblance of returning appetite. The radio was a soft background accompaniment, music frequently interrupted with gloomy broadcasts concerning the weather. Flooding was widespread, inundating lower lying areas, and Bodie for one was heartily sick of it. He padded over to the kettle and switched it on.

“Any ideas?” he asked, rummaging through cupboards for cups.

The crunch of the apple was loud enough to be heard over the slow slither of water against the hull, the thrum of the rain on the deck and Bodie glanced up to see a thoughtful expression on his partner's face. The incessant craving seemed, for the moment, to be temporarily absent and Doyle looked deceptively calm as he considered the question. Finally he swallowed and looked up as Bodie spooned tea into a stainless steal teapot, nothing as mundane as tea bags for the dapper Martell.

Swivelling around, Doyle brought one leg up and rested his chin on his knee, fingers of his left hand fiddling with the frayed hem of his jeans. “That load found in my flat. Was quite a haul, wasn’t it?”

“A lot to waste on a set up you mean,” Bodie said mildly, cottoning on. “Someone with a lot of money to waste then.”

Uncurling long legs from the sofa, Doyle stood up and stretched. Bodie eyed him as he poured boiling water. Still too thin, too pale, and, as Doyle prowled restlessly over to the galley, still not anywhere near over it.

“Wasteful that,” he said reprovingly, as Doyle tossed his half eaten apple into the bin. “Starving kids in Africa would give their right arm for that.”

“Pack it up and send it to them then.” Doyle prowled back to the window and leaned against it, his fingers beating a staccato pattern against his thigh as he idly watched a tug beating upstream against the current. “Someone has to know. Someone had to know they were bought and not distributed.”

Bodie stirred sugar into the tea and, ignoring the saucers, brought the cup over to Doyle at the window. He didn’t miss the tremor in the hand that reached for it, but said nothing, turning instead to look out at the river. “Someone who may be told to look out for you,” he said eventually.

“Good,” came the terse reply. “Then maybe we’ll get to the bottom of this.”

“Sacrificial nanny goat?” Bodie sneered provokingly. “That’ll get you killed, Ray.”

“If he wanted me dead, he would have just shot me,” Doyle said logically, not rising to the bait. “He wants me to suffer in prison, doesn’t he, sick bastard.”

“It’s still on the cards...” Bodie began but was interrupted by footsteps, loud on the deck. The door slammed open and an incensed arms dealer stood there, wet through, his umbrella sodden.

“Tell me, Bodie,” said this apparition, fury lacing every syllable. “Tell me how - at a secret meeting, so secret not even I knew the location until I was taken there, with a client who insists on the utmost discretion for his deals, which I might add, involves very large amounts of money – I received a message from your Cowley, via a very disreputable person, requesting that I direct you to the morgue at St Thomas’ hospital, immediately.”

 

He jammed his umbrella into the stand and looked daggers at them both. The partners looked at each other.

“The morgue?” Bodie murmured as Doyle dropped onto the sofa to pull his boots on. “What’s he doing there?”

“Well it’s not interviewing witnesses, is it?” Doyle replied, standing up, and stamping a foot to settle the boot. He reached for the new shoulder holster and handgun, courtesy of Martell

“Not a ghost of a chance,” Bodie looked slyly across at the furious arms dealer, “Reckon it’d be safe to go?”

“Dead safe,” Doyle agreed blackly.

“Has Cowley got a tail on me, Bodie?” Martell was so livid Bodie wouldn’t have been surprised to see sparks fly out of his ears. “Because that, old chap, is really pushing the friendship too far.”

They headed to the door as one, Bodie pausing by their furious host. He patted Martell’s cheek soothingly. “It’s all right Marty, it was probably the other bloke that we were tailing.”

 

*********

**Chapter 8**

No one would think to alert security at a hospital morgue to a prison escapee. And if they did, it was doubtful that anyone guarding the city’s dead would think to look twice at the official ID produced by two very lean and dangerous looking men, who nevertheless had been very careful approaching the building, ensuring there were no concealed MI6 men in the shadows, despite the fact that their boss was well able to elude a tail if so inclined.

The tiled room carried the smell of death, of butchers' meat and rubber and sterile potions, all diluted with water. It was a smell neither of them could ever get used to. Cowley was there with Errol Hethington, the latter looking slightly put out by the call from his bed at such a late hour, although God knew he should be used to it, it being the fifth time this year.

The cadaver was covered with a sheet; a tray of instruments stood to one side although Hethington made no move to touch them. Instead he waited, distaste clear on his bearded face. Bodie came to a halt just behind his partner; close enough to feel the fine quiver that Doyle couldn’t seem to shake off. He had a sudden memory of standing outside Doyle’s flat, when this all began, and seeing another shrouded body. A body that he initially thought was his partner. But it hadn’t been. Instantly he felt tension leave him. Regardless of who was on this table both of them were all right and that’s all that mattered in Bodie’s book.

Cowley looked rather penetratingly at Doyle before lifting the sheet in one smooth movement. The face was waxen, blue tinged, unmarked. The flesh was cold and spongy. She had been dead some time.

“Overdose,” Cowley said succinctly and dropped the sheet back over her face, for which Bodie, after a quick glance at Doyle, was grateful. His partner looked scarcely better than the corpse on the table. “Well?” Cowley enquired.

“It’s her, sir,” Bodie answered, when it was clear that Doyle wasn’t going to. “Katie Bell.”

Cowley looked down at the table his expression touching on sadness. “A bonny lass. A sad ending.” He glanced up at his men and his eyes sharpened, “And conveniently unable to give evidence.”

Doyle gave a start and stepped backwards, straight into Bodie, his face confused. Bodie put a steadying hand on Doyle’s back, between his shoulder blades and Doyle stopped retreating. Cowley was watching him shrewdly. “I don’t think she did it, lad. I don’t think she was capable, nor do I think she had the means.”

“Murder?” Doyle finally found his voice and it was jagged and brittle. Bodie stayed close, lending his presence, knowing Doyle was in the grip of another attack, knowing he was fighting it, hiding it.

“That’s what Errol is going to look at for us.” He led them away from the table to allow the doctor to get on with his work. “She was found in the river, to all intents and purposes an overdose who fell in. Or jumped in. Too neat, too coincidental and I don’t believe in coincidences.”

“But that’s our witness gone. For Doyle.” Bodie felt a surge of anger and despair. She had been their only link.

“Aye.” Cowley paused briefly. “He’s covering his tracks well. But he has to have slipped up somewhere. No one can move that amount of drugs to not go unnoticed. Get out there and find out. And watch your backs.”

************

 

 

The cocaine lay on the table in front of him, a dozen or so little bags each half filled with white powder. A high ride for the purchaser, a tidy profit for himself. One small packet of white powder lay open, its contents spilled across a small mirror. The small Jamaican known simply as Voodoo had already tested it and the seller was waiting patiently for the payoff.

King Leon didn’t like to be disturbed when he was conducting business and his employees knew it. So when raised voices floated up from the lower level he looked up, initially with annoyance, and then with a wary acceptance. Only one man could force his way in past his men and his instructions and King Leon was constantly irritated and, despite himself, impressed at how easily Ray Doyle managed it. One look at that cherubic face, and his doorman panicked. Leon couldn’t in all honesty blame him. He’d seen that angelic face change faster than a whiplash, become hard and menacing, the wiry strength in the slim frame exploding out with closed fists, hard and uncompromising. And as if Doyle wasn’t enough to contend with he was also backed by Bodie and Bodie was violence promised and delivered.

The music was soft, the lighting subdued and his men lounged around the small upstairs room, a couple of his working girls interspersed among them, already giggling as they passed a joint between themselves. Leon inhaled, catching the sickly edge of the marijuana and looked down at the small packets.

Doyle could have busted him at any time, he knew, but he was far more useful to CI5 on this side of Pentonville and Doyle had known that too, had known he was caught between a rock and hard place and Leon had bitterly resented it. But not now. Leon gave a curt nod to Montez, his bodyguard and Montez turned and signalled the men into position. Not now that Doyle’s likeness was on every police station wall - wanted as a fugitive - his days of enduring the CI5 operative’s fickle nature were long gone and King Leon smiled softly in satisfaction. He didn’t bother to clear the evidence of his deal. Not this time.

Doyle appeared at the top of the stairs, his partner at his shoulder and King Leon looked up, eyeing the agent warily; one did not underestimate any CI5 operative regardless of current payroll status. But Doyle’s appearance surprised him. He had expected a smooth façade, a man cornered and looking for a deal. He did not expect the tense, wired expression or the crackling energy. And he certainly didn’t miss those expressive eyes hardening, sweeping across the drugs on the table with a contempt that was unexpected, the full mouth tightening as the telltale odour of cannabis in the air was recognised.

He had dealt with Ray Doyle many times, had always struggled to keep up with the swift turn of the agent’s fertile mind. Casual, condescending, arrogant, merciless, fearless Leon had seen all these traits in the changeable man in front of him, but never had he seen Doyle in this sort of jittery mood. And it seemed to be catching. Bodie was keeping close to his partner, well he always did, but this time he was almost hovering, his jacket undone, hands within easy reach of the weapon inside, eyes picking out the men around them. He moved unobtrusively, placing himself side on to Doyle, keeping everyone in sight.

Doyle stopped in front of the table and his eyes flashed with murderous intent. Abruptly lifting one booted foot, he kicked it over, scattering packets of powder across the floor and pointed a shaking finger at the drug lord. “You and I need to talk.”

He was different, almost wild, uncontained. King Leon felt suddenly very threatened and he panicked, flicking a quick gesture to Montez. The large Jamaican took a single step in Doyle’s direction and Doyle spun instantly, letting loose with a clenched fist that sank into the big man’s belly like it was made of blancmange. Montez folded over with a painful groan and suddenly men were melting out of the shadows, like wraiths, closing in.

The minute Doyle moved Bodie instinctively reached for his weapon. The room hummed with ill intent, his spine tingled a warning, and he heard a very definite click just behind him. He froze. The snout of a firearm nudged his ear and a hand reached into his jacket, deftly relieving him of his revolver. Bodie cursed himself for ten times the fool; he’d been so busy covering Doyle that he hadn’t seen the man creep up the stairs behind him. Doyle was still fighting, his fury almost at berserker level and he looked quite capable of demolishing the giant Montez. Until a couple of others got into the act. And, Bodie noticed, they weren’t idiotic enough to take on a fully incensed Doyle.

Sensing movement behind him Doyle swung up and around and looked straight down the barrel of a Smith & Wesson. He halted immediately, breathing hard, face pale and strained, as he was also divested of his weapon. He slid his eyes sideways, saw his partner’s predicament and then flicked them back to the drug lord, angry and unforgiving. Leon, marginally relaxing now he had the upper hand, tested the atmosphere, trying to pinpoint what was wrong with the man.

“I hear you are unemployed,” he said finally, and reached into his breast pocket for a cheroot.

Doyle sneered at him. “You shouldn’t believe everything you hear.”

“You are wanted by the police?”

“Just the ones in skirts, all part of my natural charm.”

“The wanted posters say different.” He was irritated at this flippancy, but Doyle merely looked amused.

“Case of mistaken identity.”

Leon gained his feet and walked forward slowly, stopping well out of arms reach of the capricious agent. “You are wanted by more than the police.” He lit his cheroot and gazed at the hard man, trying to gauge what it was disturbing him. Not that Doyle was ever easy to predict, he was however easy to read, and the conflicting messages emanating from the man was puzzling.

“What can I say, I’m the life and soul of the party,” came the street-smart reply and Leon knew he was wasting his time. Frightened of nothing. He’d get nothing from Doyle like this; he’d be best passing him on as instructed.

A loud giggle from one of the working girls on the couch gave them both a start, he’d completely forgotten their existence and annoyed, he was about to order the room cleared when he saw Doyle’s face abruptly change. Any colour left in that expressive face drained, leaving his skin grey and sheened with sweat and the green blue eyes were fixed with a desperate intensity on the scene behind him. Leon turned slowly to look over his shoulder.

She was young and skinny, her dusky dark skin almost invisible against the dark furnishings on which she sprawled, loose limbed and vacant. The tourniquet around her upper arm was white, a sharp contrast and the hypodermic flashed silver in the soft lamplight as it delivered its load. The girl smiled dreamily and closed her eyes, drifting away, oblivious to the pawing hands, far removed from the altercation that had just occurred in front of her uncaring regard.

Leon turned back sharply, just in time to see Doyle’s tongue run swiftly across his lips and realisation hit him, like a physical blow. Christ he should have guessed straight away, he dealt in addiction after all. Oh this was good. This was better than good, this changed everything now and he suddenly saw how complete his retribution would be. He gestured to Montez who came and brought his left arm around Doyle’s throat, his right pinning the CI5 man’s arms by his side.

A movement distracted him and Leon saw Bodie start forward, halted immediately by another gun trained on him. His dark intense eyes came to rest on Leon, cold and deadly, promising slow vengeance, and Leon faltered. What to do with Bodie? He couldn’t let him loose, that’s for sure, the man would hunt him down and kill him for what he was about to do. He glanced around at his men, at the guns held on the agent and relaxed slightly. Bodie wasn’t going anywhere, not without a death wish. He’d figure out what to do with him later. Returning his attention to Doyle he said curtly; “Roll up his sleeves.”

Doyle struggled then, in earnest, necessitating another man to come and hold him, eventually getting the jacket and shirt sleeves pushed up enough to reveal the almost healed track marks. Leon risked coming closer, his interested gaze travelling up the marked skin and into Doyle’s desperate eyes. His voice softened, crooning. “You are wanting, man.” He flicked malevolent eyes to the couch behind him. “You are needing that, eh? You desire that fire in your veins?”

Doyle stared at him helplessly like a wild animal caught in a trap, and delighted Leon smiled, the expression quite foreign on his normally deadpan face. “I tell you what. I will help you, Doyle. I will give you what you want, what your body craves, and then you will belong to me.”

“No!” But the shouted denial came from Bodie. His murderous gaze had switched from Leon to his partner. “No! Don’t listen to him, Ray.”

Leon gestured for Doyle to be released and Montez reluctantly obeyed, keeping close, distrustful. Doyle’s sleeves were still rolled up and Leon motioned for the little Jamaican. “Voodoo, if you please.”

Held firmly in place by the weapon against his head, and strong hands pinning his arms, Bodie watched with disbelieving eyes as the dreadlocked Voodoo approached Doyle brandishing the white tourniquet. Watched in rising horror and abhorrence as his partner stood passively, as though in a trance, allowing it to be wrapped around his bicep. “Doyle! Fight it, damn you.”

But Doyle appeared not to hear him, his eyes hypnotically following the path of the hypodermic as the pusher brought it up, pausing to tap at a bulging blue vein.

“For Christ sake, Doyle!” Bodie was now willing to risk the gun, risk his life to stop this horrendous act, but hands held him, the gun hard under his jaw, preventing him from moving.

“Wait.” Leon stepped forward and his face came alive with obscene eagerness, black eyes glittering in the dull lights. He dropped the half smoked cheroot to the floor and ground it under his heel. “I will do it. I want to make him mine.”

Voodoo gave up the syringe without demur and King Leon paused, holding it before his captive’s glazed eyes. “I will enjoy this, Mr Doyle. I will enjoy using you. I will enjoy owning you.”

“Ray!” Bodie’s voice was anguished now, helpless as he watched the needle descend, luminescent against the pale gold of Doyle’s skin. The point rested against the blue vein, with just enough pressure to draw a tiny bead of red blood. Leon, smiling now, placed his thumb on the plunger.

“NO!” Bodie roared and almost broke free.

Doyle’s gaze lifted away from the spellbinding effect of the hypodermic and looked straight into anguished blue eyes. Bodie shook his head urgently, willing his partner not to falter, to heed that silent bond they still had. If Doyle fell again, Bodie didn’t think he’d be able to climb back up. He mouthed a single word… _NO!_

Leon moved closer, intent on the needle sliding into the muscled arm and then suddenly it wasn’t there. Doyle wasn’t there, and before his mind could quite grasp this unexpected twist, Leon was being held hard against a leanly muscled chest, the needle pricking against his own neck, the point uncomfortably smarting as Doyle pushed ever so slightly.

“Christ,” Doyle’s breathing was ragged, his chest heaving as though he’d been running, his voice tortured. “You filthy…you…you push this stuff…”

Abruptly the voice stopped and he could feel the tremble in Doyle’s limbs, the utter rigidity of the tense body behind him, and was suddenly terrified the man would depress the plunger. He heard a whimper of denial and realised it came from his own throat.

Time stopped, the room remained frozen, no one knowing quite what to do while Doyle fought for control. Leon looked up and saw eyes as blue as the heart of a flame. But they weren’t looking at him. Instead they were fixed at a point over his left shoulder. Bodie’s face was unreadable, but Doyle evidently had no such trouble. Gradually, the rigidity subsided, the breathing steadied, the heart rate slowed.

Doyle tilted his head towards his partner. “Tell your friends to let him go and throw down their weapons. Now!”

Leon gestured with his free hand and Bodie was released. He wasted no time reclaiming their handguns and then manoeuvred quickly and expertly to cover the remaining men, keeping Doyle in sight.

“Who’s your main competition, Leon?” Doyle asked and Leon was pathetically relieved to hear that street-smart voice sounding almost normal. “Who undercuts your price?”

Leon was even more bewildered, his fear at the CI5 man’s instability apparent in his voice. “Many people deal, Doyle, you know this.”

The needle jabbed slightly and the low voice in his ear turned lethal. “Who could afford to give away a quantity of high quality coke to set someone up?”

Leon’s eyes rolled in sheer terror, the whites stark against the black skin.

“Who?” Doyle shouted, sure that Leon knew. “Who planted drugs in my flat? Who set me up?”

“I don’t know, man. All I know is that there is a bounty for you. Quite a sum.”

“Bounty?” Bodie repeated, stunned.

“A price, money in exchange for him.” Leon spat, a touch of his usual demeanour surfacing. “We give Doyle to Nolan, we get the cash.”

“Nolan?” The name wasn’t familiar to Bodie and a quick glance at Doyle confirmed the same. “Who’s he?”

“He’s freelance, works for many people.”

“Who’s he been working for lately?” Doyle’s voice rose, cracked slightly, the needle piercing. Leon gasped, panicking again.

“Last I heard Nick Apostolakis, Santos Vasquez. John Coogan.”

Doyle froze, his body aching, his thoughts swimming. He felt a sudden surge of light headedness, sensed Bodie’s eyes fixed upon him. “John Coogan?”

“Sometimes, legit maybe. I don’t know, man. All I know is that we’re to let Nolan know if we find you.”

“How?”

Leon clawed at the muscular forearm around his chest. “Leave a message at the Golden Dragon. That’s all I know.”

Doyle nodded to Bodie and Bodie took up position slightly to the rear, covering Doyle, guiding him as his partner backed towards the stairs, Leon still in his determined grasp.

“You’d do best to forget this meeting, Leon,” Doyle said and Leon clearly heard the menace, the steel in the soft voice before he was shoved away. Doyle threw the syringe after him and ripped the tourniquet from his numbed arm. Bodie remained at his side, revolver trained on the room.

Leon regained his balance, black eyes hard with anger and hate as he watched both men descend the stairs.

It was as they reached the car that Doyle finally lost control of his stomach. He crouched in the filthy gutter, retching and retching until there was nothing left to bring up, while Bodie stood close, gun in hand, guarding his back.

 

**********

 

Ahmed was cheerful, despite the rain pelting down, thrumming on the deck. “He is doing much better, I am pleased with his progress. Soon he should be his own self.”

Bodie gave him a dark look and slung back the Scotch, neat. Martell poured him another one. “Today he nearly turned his stomach inside out. How can you call that, doing much better?”

Ahmed shrugged, unconcerned. “He fought it, did he not? And conquered his fear.” He gathered his umbrella and raincoat. “It will make him stronger now.” Seeing Bodie’s hostile face, he paused, wisely reconsidering his bedside manner. “The first test of a recovering addict is to refuse an offered hit. He wanted it very badly, you must understand the need for it is great, yet he resisted. This is the turning point, before now he would not have known if he could do this. He will be fine now. Now that he knows he can resist. I know it seems otherwise, but your friend does not have a serious addiction, he was not on it long enough, although it has taken much from him. His body sorely needs rest. The sedative will ensure he sleeps for several hours and then he will wake much better, you will see.”

Bodie wandered back to the forward cabin. Doyle was out like a light, face tired and drawn, thin as a rail. He had dozed off the minute they’d left King Leon’s, finally worn out from the constant craving and strain and Bodie had barely been able to wake him enough to guide him back on to the boat, where he’d slept restlessly for what remained of the night.

Leaning on the jamb, he tapped his bottom lip reflectively with one forefinger. They had a lead now. The Golden Dragon and a man named Nolan. But Doyle had done enough. More than enough. Bodie didn’t think he’d ever forget the expression on his face when they’d injected that girl. How Doyle had fought it, he didn’t know, but he had long ago ceased to be astonished at the reserves Doyle could pull out of thin air when he needed to. He idly wondered, if put to the test, whether he’d fare as well, not having the morals that his partner possessed - and often to his detriment in Bodie’s cynical opinion.

John Coogan. Hate suffused his entire body at the name. It made a lot of sense now. Coogan had a house in Fulham, Coogan hated Doyle and Coogan didn’t do his own dirty work. _Someone big has set this up, someone with friends in high places._ Although proving it might be difficult. Coogan also covered his tracks well.

Bodie watched his sleeping partner, idly tossing up the likelihood of Doyle remaining meekly behind while he visited the Golden Dragon. He snorted softly, not bloody likely. And yet, if King Leon was to be believed, Doyle was not safe anywhere. Not now that Nolan had put a price on his capture. If Doyle disappeared from the streets, they might never find him again, and if anyone did, he’d go straight back to prison. Bodie wasn’t going to risk that. And besides, he consoled himself, what Doyle didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him.

Martell was staring at the rain when he returned to the galley. “You do realise, don’t you, Bodie, just how much business I’m losing, stuck on this river babysitting your partner.”

“You like the river. Said so yourself. Just think of Eric the Viking.” He received a frosty stare for his trouble. “I’ll be back before he wakes,” Bodie promised, pulling on his wet jacket. “Fancy some Chinese for tea?”

The rain teemed down.

 

**********

 

 

It was small and squalid and had the sweet sickly aroma of overripe food and days old rubbish that transported Bodie right back to Hong Kong. Funny how a smell could do that he mused as he gazed at the restaurant, yet it was the same smell in every Chinatown in every city he’d ever visited.

The special of the day was Chow Mein and rice according to the small chalked sign in the window. Bodie looked at the grimy exterior and decided lunch could wait. A small bell jangled as he pushed the door open, stepping carefully over the swirling puddles of dirty water on the pavement. It was surprisingly busy, the customers predominantly of Oriental appearance, eyes glancing up with studied disinterest as he came in, and Bodie reassessed his first impression of the quality of the food. It couldn’t be that bad if it was this crowded.

He looked around cautiously but all he saw was a restaurant. That didn’t mean anything of course. There could just as likely be an opium den downstairs and no one would be any the wiser. A small bar lined one wall and a pretty girl with glossy black hair and the slanted eyes of her race looked up and smiled at him. Bodie smiled back and indicated the tables. “Busy?”

“Yes.” Her head bobbed up and down like a bird. “You want to eat?”

He shook his head and leaned casually against the bar. “Looking for a Mr Nolan.”

She nodded again and indicated the kitchen. “I get boss.”

“You do that.” He looked around unobtrusively; scanning the diners, filing faces away, although it was Doyle had the memory for faces. And the knowledge of the Chinese community.

She was back almost immediately. “He come soon, you like drink?”

“Is that the best you are offering?”

He blank stare warned him that humour wasn’t her strong point. Either that or it missed something in the translation. Easier just to accept. “Why not? Scotch?”

She nodded and gave him another smile and turned to busy herself at the bar. Bodie straightened up, stomach growling at the appetising aromas issuing from the bowels of the kitchen. A glass was placed beside his elbow and he took it automatically, throwing back the contents, not taking his eyes off the swing doors at the rear of the room. It opened and a small middle-aged oriental man appeared. He came directly up to Bodie and nodded once. “You come?”

“Come where?” Bodie put the glass down and eyed him distrustfully.

“Out back. You want to see Nolan? You come?”

Bodie hesitated for a minute then shrugged and followed the little man back through the kitchen doors. His gun was snug under his arm and yet he felt unease skitter up his spine as though something wasn’t quite right. The chefs and various kitchen hands paid no attention whatsoever as they meandered their way through the gas stoves and workbenches and they were nearly at the back door when the wave of dizziness hit him. Bodie stopped immediately and grabbed the edge of the counter, displacing the pile of pots and pans stacked there. His vision swam for a minute and giddy he stared at the little Chinese man trying to make sense of what was happening. The black slanted eyes were looking intently at him and nodded in satisfaction.

The room upended and Bodie gripped the bench tighter, panic bubbling beneath his skin. He looked around, tried to speak, but the next minute he was falling amid a clatter of pans from the bench as his flailing left arm scrabbled for purchase. He had just enough wits left to twist and land on his side, and then he couldn’t move. The roomed hummed and clattered in a weird drunken way and his misty vision was limited to what he could see under the counter, dust, grease, a lone spoon, a dead cockroach, but he couldn’t turn over. The noise of the kitchen faded and he felt hands tap him gently, cautiously prodding, removing his revolver, checking him for other weapons, finding his knife, his lockpicks.

The room was still spinning he was still conscious, and yet his limbs refused to obey his mind, paralysed into immobility. Christ, the drug, the drug that Doyle had been given. Fury gripped him, but he was as immobile as Doyle had been, the world spinning around him like a carousel. Chinese voices argued, the clatter of dishes and the hiss of gas flames flaring and fading from his senses. Finally hands picked him up, grunting with effort, carried him the rest of the way out of the back door to a car parked in the small lane. Bodie was manhandled into the boot and the lid slammed shut.


	4. Easy Prey

****

**Chapter 9**

Identifying your dead daughter couldn’t be easy for any parent, Cowley thought. Even if you had disowned said dead daughter. Leaving the Bells to their privacy, he wandered out to the waiting room. An attempt had been made to give it more comfort, a tea and coffee machine, a small table with magazines, but when all was said and done, it was a morgue and there was scarce comfort to be found in a morgue. Fourteen year old Clare Bell was sitting on a plastic chair clutching her school bag to her chest. She looked pale and very young, yet she was surprisingly dry eyed. Cowley stood in the doorway and gazed at her. Her dark head came up and stared right back.

“Katie’s dead, isn’t she?”

Cowley hesitated, unsure of what her parents had told her, but she was smart enough to know where she was and why.

“Are you the policeman investigating it? The voice was snappy, reminding Cowley immediately of her father, that same no nonsense demand in the tones.

“She knew, you know,” Clare went on fiercely. “She told me so.”

“Knew what exactly?” Cowley asked cautiously.

“She knew she was going to die. She wrote it in her diary and she gave it to me. She didn’t want to do it. She didn’t want to do it to the policeman. They made her.”

Cowley glanced to the autopsy room, but Mrs Bell was still sobbing on her husband’s shoulder. “Do you still have her diary?”

The girl nodded. “She said to keep it safe.”

Cowley was very careful now. “If I had the diary, I might be able to find out what happened to her?”

Clare Bell wore the stubborn look of her father. “It won’t bring her back.”

“No,” Cowley said gently. “No it won’t. But it might help the policeman. And it might prevent what happened to your sister, happening to other girls.”

Clare stared at him a bit longer, lips clamped and then unzipped her school bag. “She didn’t mean it,” she reiterated as she pulled out a small pink book, girlishly decorated with hearts.

“I know Clare, I know,” Cowley murmured gently, and reached for the book.

*************

Doyle woke slowly and with great confusion. His head felt heavy, his mouth full of cotton wool and he had an awful taste in his mouth. He rolled over and sat up, clothes rumpled, hair a ragged mess. He sat for a minute, adjusting time and space, remembered the tablet the doctor and Bodie had made him swallow, remembered the dead girl, remembered King Leon. He scrubbed his hands over his face, rubbing sleep from his eyes and finally raked his fingers through his hair, ordering the long curls. Pulling himself to his feet, he knew a moment of giddiness, probably from his empty stomach more than anything, and he made his way to the bathroom. A splash of cold water on his face and a handful to swish his mouth out and he felt more human. He held a hand out level, testing and was pleased to see the tremor very nearly gone. The burning, wanting of his body was a mere hum now, subsiding, just as Ahmed had said it would. Cheered, he wandered out into the galley. Martell was there, going over figures in a ledger. He looked up as Doyle entered and nodded politely.

“Where’s Bodie?” Doyle asked, his voice rough from lack of use. How long had he been out? He glanced outside, but the lowering clouds and steadily drizzling rain gave him no clue. He automatically glanced at his wrist before remembering that his watch was still at the prison, taken from him, along with his chain and wrist bracelet, when he was remanded.

“It’s nearly three,” Martell told him. “And I don’t know where Bodie is. He didn’t say, but he said he’d be back with Chinese for dinner.”

Doyle’s head snapped up at that. Chinese? The Golden Dragon. Bodie wouldn’t be so foolish as to go there without him, without backup…would he? A little voice told him immediately that yes, Bodie would and Doyle groaned out loud. “He’s gone after Nolan.” He bit his bottom lip in frustration.

“Nolan?” Martell echoed. “Not Christopher Nolan?”

Doyle shook his head. “Dunno, don’t know his first name. Only know he was dealing in something big recently. Drugs.”

Martell nodded. “Sounds like him. He’ll be into anything that makes a profit. Works for some big names in our game.”

“And Bodie’s gone after him on his own,” Doyle snarled. He whirled around to find his jacket. “I’m going after him.”

 

***********

_Daddy said I had to meet this man. Said that I should be nice to him. He may be an important man in MI6, but I don’t like him. It’s Daddy trying to use me for his own purposes again._

The desk lamp was on, the heavy day drawing to a close and Cowley flipped the page.

_I met a man last night. Daddy introduced me to him. He scares me, but he’s fascinating as well. He says I’m beautiful and that no one could resist me. He has promised to take me out to dinner._

_John said it would make me feel good, but it made me sick. He laughed and said that was only temporary. I don’t like taking it, but he says I should, that he might not like me if I don’t._

Cowley rubbed his hand across his face and flipped pages, the last six months of this young girl's life laid out as bare as her corpse had been on the autopsy table.

_I tried to leave John but he wouldn’t let me. He said he will tell my family and I’ll never get work again, I’ll be on the streets and hooking for money if I do. He took pictures of Simon and me, to threaten Simon’s wife. I didn’t want to do it but John made me. John likes to make people do what he wants. Simon can influence court decisions. I heard John tell Mr Nolan._

And finally he found the page he was looking for.

_John wants to get at a policeman. Something the policeman once did to him and John wants him to pay for it. I have to seduce the policeman, I have to put a drug in his drink so that John can set him up. I don’t want to do it, but John will withhold my stuff. I have to do it but I don’t want to._

Cowley paused and poured himself a drink. He felt a terrible anger for Doyle, but he also found a terrible sadness for the girl. A girl, barely nineteen, pushed into doing favours by her ambitious father, pushed finally to the wrong man and in way over her head. He thought of that smiling face in the picture on the mantelpiece of the Bell’s home. And he thought of that cold blue face on the slab in the morgue. And he looked at the little pink diary with its girlish hearts and childish writings, sadly reminding him of how very young she had been.

_I did it and it was bad, as awful as I thought it would be. I didn’t tell John that he didn’t want sex, he would have blamed me, but it would have been nice if it had happened. He was good looking, they both were. His name was Ray. I put the stuff in his drink and he drank it. I did what I had to. But I can’t help hoping that Bodie got back to him in time._

He poured another drink and turned to the last entry, written hurriedly and with a final poignancy.

_I’m scared now. John says I’m useless. A useless junkie. He wouldn’t give me any stuff. I told him I would go to the police, tell them what he did to that policeman. He is very angry now. I heard him call Nolan on the phone. I wish I were home, I wish I were little again, and that Daddy loved me. I want to see Clare to warn her never to let Daddy make her do these things._

 

***********

He didn’t know how long he’d been laying on the damp stone floor, but Bodie reckoned he’d be stiff from more than the damn drug by the time it finally wore off. They hadn’t bothered tying or gagging him, there was clearly no need. His head was still whirling like a merry-go-round, his vision distorted, unable to focus properly on faces, not that he could see any. He was facing a stone wall, moisture rank and dripping down its dull surface, the chill of it permeating both the room and himself. He knew what had been done to him though. Knowing didn’t make it any easier, but at least he knew it would wear off in a couple of hours, whereas Doyle hadn’t had that luxury. The thought of his partner gave him both an equal surge of hope and worry. He knew Doyle well and he knew Doyle would come after him, addiction or no addiction. Armed with a Browning 9mm and his temper Doyle was a force to be reckoned with, he just had to hang on, ride whatever they dished out to him, until Doyle got here. And Doyle would, he thought fiercely, his partner certainly smart enough to figure out what had happened to him. But was he able to function at his normal speed and dexterity with the faint remnants of heroin sloshing around his veins? Bodie gave an inward moan and shudder, not wanting to think about Doyle being taken captive, delivered a shambling junkie to Coogan, or being sent down again.

 

His eyes opened when he heard the door unlock behind him and footsteps cross the floor. The room spun crazily and he tried to swallow, tried to concentrate, fighting the dizzying sensations.  
.

“The wrong one. You brought me the wrong one. It’s the other one I want.” Bodie did not recognise the voice, nor could he see its owner, who was careful to stand behind him.

“You say bring you man who ask for you.” This voice had a definite Asian accent and Bodie guessed it was the little Chinese man from the restaurant.

“He was alone? The contract is for the other man. John wants the other one. Alive.”

“There was no other. Just this one.”

There was silence and Bodie commanded his body to turn over. It ignored him. He felt the kick though. It connected solidly with his lower back and did what he couldn’t, flipping him over like a rag doll. Black spots now overlapped the swirling room and a grunt escaped him.

“Go back to the restaurant before this damn river cuts the roads off and wait for the other one. He’ll come after this one. It’s what they do. Drug him when he arrives and call me. I’ll use this one for bait.”

“And the deal?”

“Your people will have it ready by tonight.”

Footsteps receded and Bodie closed his eyes. Pain radiated out from his back in red-hot swatches. His cheek lay against the cold stones and the room spun.

 

*************

Mrs Bell hadn’t finished grieving. Dressed in a black twin set, throat adorned with pearls and hair styled immaculately, the dignified appearance was quite ruined by the red rimmed eyes and blotchy skin of ongoing sorrow. Cowley sat opposite her in the small parlour, overlooking the small garden, while she made a mess of the afternoon tea. The fine porcelain teapot shook in her hand, the contents splattering cup, saucer and lace tablecloth alike.

“No sugar thank you,” Cowley said as the tongs, trembling slightly in her hand hovered over the bowl. She put them down with a clatter and clasped her fingers together instead. A small thin, highly strung woman she avoided eye contact and instead fixed her gaze on the bare trees outside.

“I’m sure my husband would be far more helpful in your enquiries, Mr Cowley,” she said with a little catch in her voice. “I have very little to do with his business.”

“But you would perhaps know with whom your daughter kept company, before she left home,” Cowley pressed, gazing at the stricken woman. “People who your husband may have introduced her to.”

“I fail to see what that has to do with her death,” the woman said tiredly. “I would never have thought it of her. She was always so timid as a child.”

Cowley struggled to steer the conversation back on course. “Did she perhaps keep company with anyone who worked in the law courts, law enforcement, perhaps, anyone that would be out of the ordinary for a mere air hostess?”

The woman turned her gaze on Cowley for the first time. “My husband knew people like that. We would have dinner parties. When she was old enough, Katherine would be required to attend. Marcus would insist on it. He would get so terribly impressed by people, people with a background and he encouraged Katherine to be friendly to them.”

“Like Simon Teltham?”

She looked surprised. “Yes, from the courts. Marcus didn’t have that much to do with him, John asked us to invite him.”

“John?”

“John Coogan, the ex boxer,” she nodded and sniffed. “My husband did some business with him and he was quite taken with Katherine. He took her out to dinner several times, the perfect gentleman. My husband introduced him to some very well-to-do people, one from BBC, another from the House of Lords. I think there was even a man from MI6 at one point.”

“Clive Williams?” Cowley asked directly, but to his disappointment she shook her head. “I don’t know that name. No, this man was Walter…somebody. Walter Perkins, Parkins…Parsons. Something like that. He was quite taken with Katherine as well.”

Cowley sat back. “Indeed?”

She dabbed at her eyes. “I still can’t believe she’s gone.”

The tears were flowing now, and Cowley watched her dab her eyes and felt nothing but sadness for a young girl and a life cut short.

 

**********

**Chapter 10**

“You like a drink?” The pretty pair of almond eyes looked at him innocently, holding an empty glass and Doyle had a sudden memory of another girl holding out a glass, giving him a drink. That girl now lay dead on an autopsy table. He shook his head, the memory bitter. For a minute he thought he saw chagrin before she smiled coaxingly. “Is on the house.”

“No, thank you. It’s Mr Nolan I want to see. Now, if you don’t mind.”

She seemed hesitant now, as though she was unsure what to do. “He is not here.”

“Then where is he?” Doyle looked around the room again. Dinner was in full swing, waiters scurrying to and fro from the kitchen bearing plates of appetising food. Several customers were at the bar, sipping drinks and chatting quietly. The Golden Dragon looked like a restaurant, nothing more, nothing less, yet it was the supposed contact for Nolan, according to King Leon. He shoved his hands in his pockets and hunched, not liking the set up at all. He had the distinct feeling he was being watched.

“You have drink and I find out for you,” she promised and held up the glass again. Doyle stared at her and his spine prickled, right between his shoulder blades, his sixth sense suddenly flaring up. Something wasn’t right about her, about this place. He knew Bodie had come here; the little brown Escort was still outside, parked four spaces away in front of a launderette. So either Bodie was still here somewhere or….

Abruptly he spun around and headed straight for the kitchen door. It opened before he got there and a middle-aged, small Chinese man stepped out, preventing his entry.

“You look for Mr Nolan?”

Doyle stopped, but his spine didn’t stop prickling. “Yes.”

“Come, I take you to him.” He turned to go back into the kitchen and Doyle warily followed. The swing doors closed behind him and he felt rather than saw, movement behind him. Abruptly he swung around, just in time to counter the rope that had been about to descend over his head. A quick fist to the gut took his opponent to his knees. Shouted Chinese instructions came from the suddenly agitated owner and various chefs abruptly stopped work and closed in on him. Doyle deftly kicked the kitchen knife away from one man and swung the same leg around to take out another. Dishes clattered to the floor and he scooped up a heavy frying pan to lay into the next attacker. The man went sailing backwards over the work counter, accompanied by a shower of cooked rice. The little Chinese man was still yelling instructions when Doyle finally whipped out his gun and held it straight to his face. Everyone froze.

“Where is the man that came looking for Nolan?” he snarled into the sudden quiet.

The black eyes focused on the gun and then up into his face. What he saw must have made an impression because he shrugged his shoulders. “Many man look for Nolan.”

“Dark hair, blue eyes, my height,” Doyle shouted and cocked the gun, taking a step closer.

“I do not know this man.” The black eyes stared at him challengingly and Doyle brought the muzzle up under his chin, grinding hard, but the little man didn’t budge, closing his mouth and staring back defiantly.

Frustration gnawed at him. He grabbed the man in an arm lock and proceeded to tear the place apart.

 

*********

Stan Leslie was indebted to Ray Doyle. Or so he told himself as he pushed past the crowd at the door of the Golden Dragon. Anything, even cleaning up after Doyle’s explosive temper, was preferable to dishing out tea to irritatingly smug CI5 operatives and random drunks and he’d been quick to follow Cowley’s orders, knowing as well as his boss did that it was imperative that Doyle leave before the local police turned up.

The restaurant looked like a madman had rampaged through it. Said madman was currently standing in the midst of this disaster zone, holding six or so Chinese at bay with a Browning Hi Power. Doyle looked up as he approached. “About time.”

“Had to put the milk away first, didn’t I?” Leslie was unperturbed by Doyle’s tone. The lad had had a rough time of late and he was entitled. He pulled his weapon out and cocked his head at Doyle. Doyle holstered his own and tossed a small bottle to the big agent. Leslie caught it by reflex and held it up. The glass was green, the pills inside small and white.

“I wouldn’t take one if I were you,” Doyle said grimly. “But give them to Cowley. Tell him this pretty little thing had them nicely lined up with the Babychams.”

Leslie whistled softly and put them in his pocket. “Cowley hasn’t found anything out about Christopher Nolan yet. He said for you to keep in touch.”

“Well whoever he is, I think he’s got Bodie.”

A swift sharp glance from Leslie confirmed Doyle was serious. “Are you sure?”

“Reasonably. Bodie was coming here and he didn’t come back. He’s not here now, I’ve looked, but the car is parked just up the street.”

“Better wait for Cowley,” Leslie advised, looking grimly down at the row of captives. “He’s bound to find something on Nolan, let you know where to look.”

But Doyle shook his head, “It’s me he wants, not Bodie and I’m going after him now.”

“Yeah?” Leslie was unimpressed. “Where?”

Where indeed? Finding Bodie was top of his concerns yet, where would he be? Who would know? If King Leon didn’t, then he hadn’t much hope of finding someone that did. Unless he confronted John Coogan, and wouldn’t Cowley just love that? And as much as Doyle itched to do it, he knew that they couldn’t touch Coogan without substantial proof, not after the last disaster to bring him to justice. But this Nolan seemed to be just as elusive. The little Chinese man knew, but it could take a couple of hours for Cowley to crack him at headquarters, and who knew what was happening to Bodie in the meantime. Yet someone would have to know about Nolan, he couldn’t hire out his services without some sort of advertising. Doyle ran a hand agitatedly through his curls. He felt like he was missing something, some vital piece of information.

Faint sirens could be heard, growing in volume, and Leslie gestured with his handgun, “You’d better scarper.”

Doyle didn’t need telling twice. He was gone before the first squad car entered the street.

 

**********

The footsteps returned at about the same time as feeling tentatively began in Bodie’s fingertips. It seemed like he had been lying on this cold stone floor for hours, yet he had no idea how much time had passed. Pins and needles assaulted the numbness and he managed to turn his head. Pain exploded in his side again.

“I know you can talk now, so tell me where he is. Where have you hidden him?”

Bodie thought he was sadly mistaken, the kick had robbed him of any breath to speak, even if he wanted to and he tried to roll away. His limbs flopped helplessly, still uncooperative and he tried to draw his legs up in an attempt to protect his vitals from the hard boots. Rough hands grabbed his hair and yanked his face up. The next blow cut his lip, shook his teeth and he was sure he felt his jaw crack. Another to the side of his head and he was released to fall back, powerless, against the floor. Another blow sent a spurt of blood into his mouth and still Bodie couldn’t move, couldn’t get his tongue around his stiff lips to form the curse he longed to hurl at his attacker. His head whirled, partly from the drug, partly from the rock solid fist, that shot out and hit him again. He curled inside away from the pain, yet his body stubbornly did not obey his thought patterns.

“If you don’t tell me, I’ll beat you senseless,” the voice warned and Bodie looked up through the haze of pain to see a large man, muscular, with a tough no-nonsense face. He was wearing a white business shirt and jacket, and he had a gun in his hand. “Where is Doyle?”

***********

 

You had to hand it to the man, Doyle thought as Rufus swung the launch around against the turbulent river to the barely visible dock and he began to see why Bodie kept in contact with the arms dealer. He was extremely resourceful when he put his mind to it. Particularly once Doyle had pinned him up against the hull in the galley and said that if he didn’t come clean on what he knew about Christopher Nolan, Doyle was going to personally break both his arms before throwing him overboard. Martell had believed him

On leaving the restaurant, Doyle had debated on what to do to find Nolan, considering and discarding possible underworld crime contacts. Quite apart from the fact that they would all know by now that he was an escapee, and accordingly wouldn’t hesitate to drop him in it for the offered reward, he suspected that Nolan operated out of their class anyway. _Friends in high places._ Friends like John Coogan! Doyle’s eyes narrowed and his lips thinned. Likely but unproven and Bodie had to come first anyway. Nolan had to have him, he was certain of it. But how to find them? He’d walked faster, long legs carrying him away from the Golden Dragon, the uncomfortable thought that he was missing something important nagging at him like a toothache. His skin prickled again, a tiny surge of wanting in his stomach and he breathed evenly, settling the faint craving, relaxing his fisted hands in his jacket pockets. The rain drizzled gently down like a mist.

It was while skulking in a doorway, ducking away from a passing police car, that it had come to him to like a bolt of lightning out of the blue. Martell’s words to be exact. _Works for some big names in our game._

To Martell’s chagrin, Doyle had arrived back on the boat in record time, and, by means of threatening physical violence, had learned rather quickly that Christopher Nolan worked freelance for whoever had enough money to pay him and that Martell had previously supplied him with weapons for a deal in Ireland. He had a property out near the Laleham Golf Club, but was hardly ever there, as his movements took him all over the world. Doyle had dutifully passed on the information to Cowley, only to be informed that the roads were cut off by rising floodwaters and there was no way in or out. “Unless,” Cowley had added with some asperity, “you have a boat.”

“You do realise that this could do my reputation irreparable damage,” Martell grumbled as he stood beside him on the deck, still wary of the CI5 operative’s formidable temper so close to the surface over his missing partner.

“I doubt anything could do your reputation irreparable damage,” Doyle said dryly.

“I assure you dear boy, helping CI5 with their investigations qualifies quite nicely,” Martell said huffily.

The rain was coming down again and already Doyle was soaked, his hair dripping into his eyes, his expensive wool coat heavy with water. The sodden grey clouds made the afternoon quite dark and he risked exposing his shoulder holster by removing it freeing his arms of the clumsy weight. The rain fell cold against his shoulders without the water heavy garment but he felt lighter. He handed it to Martell, never taking his eyes from the large house, visible through the trees. “Are you sure it’s the right house?”

Martell was watching his shoulders flex, the shirt clinging damply to his back and absently replied, “Reasonably sure. Although it’s been a couple of years and last time I came by car, but I remember the river, I walked down here to look at it. I wouldn’t have thought it would flood like this.”

Doyle looked at the expanse of water overflowing the banks and swirling right up to the base of the house itself. “Bet Noah said the same thing.”

As soon as the boat eased as close to the dock as Rufus dared, Doyle jumped over. He landed thigh deep and steadied himself against the current with the exposed handrail before wading up the ramp onto the bank where, to his relief, the water only came to his knees. He removed his gun and checked the safety catch before splashing off across the submerged lawn.

The house loomed up, secluded, private, but with a faint air of disuse and abandonment, although there were dim lights visible from some windows. God knows how long it had stood here, but it looked ancient, huge, grey and forbidding, complete, no doubt with dungeons, ancient medieval torture equipment and a ghost or two. Doyle decided to investigate outside first; the last thing he needed was a startled homeowner calling the police because Martell had got the wrong address.

He crept around the perimeter of the house, carefully keeping to shrubbery and shadows. Most of the windows were dark but on the far side there were steps leading up onto a concrete patio and double doors showed him a dining room. A soft overhead light illuminated table and chairs, a glass sideboard. There didn’t seem to be any movement, no one about. Doyle watched carefully for several minutes before moving on, slower now, as this side faced the river and the Thames was currently sloshing up against the house itself. There was a barred window here, set low into the ground and water trickled over it and down into the depths. Doyle paused by the side and peered in, through broken glass. A cellar of some sort, cold and wet and dim. He was about to move on when he heard a low groan, as though someone was in pain. He stopped and peered again, allowing his eyes to adjust to the dark.

A man lay on the floor, his limbs at odd angles, his hair dark, his face hidden. Doyle breathed evenly and squinted. A leather jacket, dark trousers. Another soft groan and then a smothered, “Jesus,” convinced him.

“Bodie?”

The body didn’t move, and Doyle hissed louder, urgent. “Bodie!”

The head turned slightly and Doyle could see him clearer now. Saw the blood flowing on his face, bruises dark against the natural pallor of his skin. He looked like he’d been beaten quite thoroughly and although Doyle had been half expecting it, it still made him cold and angry inside.

“Doyle?”

“How bad are you hurt?”

His partner didn’t answer, and Doyle thought for a minute he’d lost consciousness. “Come on, sunshine, I need to know what’s happening. How many are in there?”

His pupils had dilated now and he could see water on the floor, about an inch deep. Bodie was lying half on his back and made no move to sit up. “Bodie!”

He saw the long form stir and groan again and realised that he couldn’t move freely. Yet he wasn’t tied. “Christ, Bodie!” He rattled the bars, wanting to get to his partner to help him. “What is it?” For a horrible terrifying minute he thought that Bodie might have spinal damage.

“That…drug,” Bodie whispered and his voice betrayed the pain he was in. “Can’t move.”

“Stay with me.” Doyle ran his fingers over the small window, trying to find a weak spot, his movements causing a deluge to cascade in over the sill and spill across the cellar floor. He pressed his face against the bars; worry masking his features. “Bodie, come on mate, wake up. You have to stay awake.”

“I’m awake,” Bodie mumbled but his eyes were closed, blood steadily dripping from a cut in his temple, diluting into the water under his cheek.

“How many am I up against?”

Bodie didn’t answer for a minute and Doyle, anxious, helpless, said, “I’m coming in, Bodie, how many?”

“One.” Bodie groaned again and his head moved restlessly, arms and legs twitching and shifting on the wet stone floor. “That I know of. Careful mate, he’s got fists like rocks.”

“I can see,” Doyle said angrily. “How bad are you?”

“It’s wearing off…pins and needles.” Bodie fell silent and Doyle thought he’d passed out. He had to get him out of there. Swiftly he stood up and scanned the house again. One, Bodie had said, and with the roads cut off, hopefully there wouldn’t be any more coming.

“Hold tight mate, I’m getting you out of here.” He drew his gun and crept towards the house again, lined himself up against the wall listening, but all he could hear was the pattering of the rain. He brought his weapon up, muzzle against his cheek and felt a slight tremble in his hands. God, not now, he thought desperately and willed the attack not to come. A slight burning infused his veins and he closed his eyes, head against the wall. Not now! He had to help Bodie.

 

********

Bodie jerked awake at the sudden sound of gunfire. Every inch of him hurt, Nolan had promised to beat him senseless and Bodie had an uncomfortable thought that he already had. He tried to roll over and miraculously, his limbs obeyed. He lay on his back for a minute, taking inventory. The pins and needles were sharp, prickling all over his skin like tiny imps with teeth, his face was throbbing and hot and his lower back had a very dull ache, spreading like fire across his kidneys. He felt disorientated and ill.

The gunfire started again and snapped his attention away from his hurts. Doyle! He hadn’t dreamed his partner up at the window, he’d been there, and now he was in here trying to get to him. Doyle had seemed reassuringly normal, alert and focussed as he always was during an op. Or was he imagining it? Wishful thinking after a week of a dependent Doyle, shaking and moaning, battling the incessant demands of his body.

Bodie took a deep pain filled breath and sat up. His limbs were numb, weak, but they were responding. He spat blood and staggered clumsily to his feet. But before he could move any further the cellar door slammed open and Nolan was there, gun in hand, face hard. He stalked in and took Bodie by the collar, jamming the gun up under his jaw. Steel grey eyes looked down at him and he said; “Your partner has arrived.”

Bodie was in no fit state to fight. His legs felt like jelly, his arms were leaden and his head was pounding, flitting in and out of blackness like a faulty light bulb. Nolan dragged him out of the door, shoved him in front, keeping the gun trained on him. Bodie moved woodenly, trying to clear his mind, set something up, but his injuries screamed at him. There were a short set of steps leading down and Nolan shoved him in that direction. Bodie’s legs weren’t up to being shoved and he went head first, landing painfully on one shoulder and agony clawed through him. He lay curled at the bottom of the stairs breathing heavily, while stabbing daggers of torture cascaded across his collarbone, chest and arm. Nolan came after him and hauled him to his feet, forcing him to move and Bodie hoped to God Doyle was sufficiently recovered enough to take Nolan down.  
.

********

 

He hadn’t killed him, hadn’t intended to and the man lay with Doyle’s bullet in his side, propped up against the wall. Shattered glass and equipment decorated the floor, a small huddle of frightened Chinese workers had scattered and fled at the first gunshot, but the makeshift lab was the least of his problems. Finding the likely source of the drug was secondary to finding his partner. But at least he’d got Nolan, he thought in satisfaction and that meant Bodie was safe. He stared down at the man, thinking he seemed vaguely familiar, although he knew he’d never met Christopher Nolan before, or even heard of him for that matter. Uneasy, Doyle bent down and roughly rifled the man’s clothes as he reclined, panting with pain. The small wallet in the inside pocket opened to reveal an ID card and Doyle sucked in his breath, face hardening to murder. Walter Parsons, MI6.

Parsons looked up at him. “I’m not saying anything.”

“Good.” Doyle leaned back and swung with his right fist. It connected with Parson’s jaw and the man slumped out cold. “You can tell it to the judge.”

He picked up his gun and stuck Parson’s weapon down the front of his soaked jeans. His shirt clung coldly to his body like a clammy second skin and yet he was fired up. Bodie mustn’t have known about Parsons, hardly surprising, since the MI6 man wouldn’t have risked being recognised. Which meant Nolan was still loose somewhere. And Bodie was still paralysed, lying in a room that was slowly filling with water.

Standing up he grimly surveyed the lab, condemning eyes sweeping the small green bottles containing white pills, then made his way cautiously to the far door. Steps leading down. How many cellars did this place have? And where the hell was the room where he’d seen Bodie? The labyrinth of stairs and cellars had turned him around and he tried to orientate himself, hoping that Nolan hadn’t got to his partner first. A faint sound echoed into the room and his head snapped up, tilting in the direction he thought it had originated from. He descended the stairs into knee-deep water, wiping a shaking hand to clear the sweat from his face, the faint yearning still burning his skin.

 

***********

 

Nolan pushed Bodie determinedly in front of him and he gave a yelp of pain at the shove against his hurt shoulder. They were in another cellar, this one knee deep in water, wine racks and various outdated pieces of furniture lining the walls. He looked around groggily and saw several different openings in various directions, his skittering thoughts unable to ascertain what the rooms might have originally been used for, or where Nolan was taking him.

_“Bodie!”_

“Move,” Nolan growled and shoved him towards onwards, to the far doorway. “I don’t know how he found this place, but I’ve got him now. He won’t risk you.”

The words were a brutal catalyst through Bodie’s pain provoking him to finally react, fear for his partner strengthening his resolve. Using what little reserves he had, he swung around with his uninjured arm and pushed Nolan off balance, grappling for the gun. Nolan fell back, into an empty row of shelves and the noise echoed hollowly through the small room.

 

Bodie heard Doyle shout again, accompanied this time by splashing. He wrestled with the man and they staggered into another unstable row of shelving. His shoulder screamed blue murder, the pain indescribable. The structure gave way, falling and Bodie twisted, desperate to avoid the tumbling mass. Nolan stepped back, wrenching the gun free and Bodie fell awkwardly, the filthy water closing briefly over his head. His ankle twisted, caught in something submerged and he heard an audible snap as the bone gave way against his own weight. A bellow of pain was torn unwillingly from his throat as he scrabbled free of the debris, but Nolan had recovered, was standing there, solid, angry, the snout of the Magnum pointed right at him. Bodie froze, crouched in the rank water like a rabbit caught in the headlights of a car, his entire body trembling, the pain washing through him, hazy spots floating across his vision. Nolan smiled and moved forward.

“Call him,” he said softly. “Call Doyle.”

Bodie stared up at him, the pain cascading through him in waves from his shoulder to his foot and he stubbornly closed his mouth. Nolan reached over, grabbed his damaged shoulder and squeezed. Bodie let rip a yell that echoed around the flooded cellar, and fell back, very nearly losing consciousness. He reached around desperately, anchoring himself to the mangled wreckage of the shelving and lay still, fighting the waves of blackness, thoughts solely on his partner stumbling unknowingly in the dimness of the abandoned rooms. There was a sudden silence, broken only by steady dripping and the soft lapping of water against the stone walls. Bodie closed his eyes tight, the urge to vomit suddenly strong in his gut, but he wouldn’t call Doyle to the trap laid out for him.

Nolan squeezed again and again Bodie yelled, quite utterly unable to prevent it and despite the cold and his saturated clothing, sweat broke out across his face.

“Let him go, Nolan!” The voice echoed over the old stones and Bodie lay quiescent in Nolan’s grip, fighting the agony of his damaged body.

“Come out with your hands up, Doyle and I will. Someone wants you. Wants you very badly and has sent me to get you. Come and give yourself up.” Nolan’s eyes shifted around the various doorways, unsure with the receding echoes of exactly where Doyle was. “If you don’t, I’ll kill him.”

“Don’t believe him Doyle….” But Bodie’s words were cut off by a vicious swing of the weapon in Nolan’s fist. He felt it strike across his mouth, opening the existing cut in the lining of his cheek and his mouth filled with the metallic taste of blood.

“He’s dead, Doyle. Your partner’s dead,” Nolan yelled out, then waited, listening and suddenly there it was. The splashing that indicated someone approaching.

“No!” Bodie yelled suddenly. “Watch it, Doyle….”

A vicious kick caught him in the chest and he slumped back against the wreckage, breathing hard, trying not to give in to beckoning darkness. Nolan hauled him to his feet again and Bodie half slumped against him, unable to stand upright. Nolan bent slightly, using Bodie as a shield, knowing that Doyle was armed.

“He’s dead if you don’t show yourself now,” Nolan shouted and the words echoed back to them over and over. “It’s you I want, come out and I won’t kill him.”

Bodie groaned softly, hurting badly, only one thing keeping him going and that was the extraordinary ability of his partner. Doyle was a vicious little sod when he got going and Bodie had infinite faith in him. Doyle wouldn’t fall for this trick.

Somewhere on the edge of his hearing, splashing suddenly recommenced and Doyle erupted into the room, gun up and aimed. Both men turned at the noise, Bodie with sudden alarm, Nolan with grim satisfaction. Bodie had a fleeting sense of deja vu, Doyle dripping wet, hair unfamiliarly straight with the weight of the water, like it had been the night this whole mess started, his jeans wet and clinging to his legs, dragging his forward motion like an anchor chain. Through a haze of pain he saw Doyle take in the situation in a single glance allowing his momentum to continue, yet robbed of his speed by the water swirling around his knees. Saw him hesitate as he registered Bodie in the line of fire.

No! Bodie twisted free, flung himself away. Gunshots blasted the cellar, echoing in the dank rooms and for a minute he wasn’t sure who had fired. Bottles exploded in the rack behind his partner's moving form.

Doyle’s head snapped back, his body following and a splash had him under water in an instant. He didn’t struggle up, instead he floated, half submerged in the water, body loose and lax.

Christ. No! Bodie instinctively tried to rise and his injuries screamed at him. He subsided, pale and shaking and flicked his eyes to Nolan. The man was standing, unmoving, the gun still extended. In a disbelieving daze, Bodie waited for Nolan’s weapon to be turned on him. Braced himself. Only it didn’t. Instead the arm began to shake and Nolan’s mouth opened, almost as though in surprise. He half turned, arm still extended and Bodie saw a spreading crimson stain over that white business shirt. Nolan looked more than surprised. He looked astonished. Bodie dimly had a thought of Doyle’s innate marksmanship as Nolan toppled backwards, the weapon falling from suddenly nerveless fingers.

Bodie was moving before he heard the splash, scrabbling and hauling himself by one arm and one good leg through the foul water to where his partner floated face down. He gritted his teeth, ignored the pain, cleared his vision by sheer force of stubborn will. A spreading red stain diluted the water, like a red tide. So much of it. Bodie inhaled softly in distress as he reached out, snatching desperately at Doyle’s collar, tendrils of hair coiling lengthily around his fingers. He pulled his partner sluggishly towards him and turned him over. Blood ran freely from a gouge in his hairline, but Bodie could see no other signs of entry. Yet the water was full of it, stained red. He gave another quick inventory before dimly realising that the colour was wine, the bottles on the shelves smashed and pouring their contents into the water.

Water pooled in Doyle’s closed eyes, his cheekbones sharp under the pale skin, full lips tinged blue. There was no sign of life whatsoever. Bodie felt for a pulse, found none and adrenaline kicked in overriding his own agony. Hauling Doyle up against him he forced his partner's mouth open and tilted his head back. Taking a breath he fought the dizzying waves of pain from his various injuries and placed his mouth over Doyle’s, breathing air into those still lungs.

Nothing. Bodie took another breath, his ribs stabbing and complaining, and did it again, his partner’s skin cold against his lips. Nothing.

“Damn you, Doyle, just breathe.”

He could hear noises now in the rest of the house, far away and muffled. His body was in agony. He inhaled again and breathed into Doyle’s mouth. The chest rose and fell and was still again.

“Don’t give up,” Bodie whispered and again filled his partner’s lungs. “Just don’t give up.”

And suddenly Doyle was coughing, water spewing up from his mouth. Bodie seized him tighter and brought one hand around to his neck. It was there, feebly pulsing, but it was there. He leaned back against the wreckage of the wine rack, and clutched his partner’s half floating body to him, keeping Doyle’s head above the water. His good arm banded fiercely around Doyle’s chest, the other draped gently over his throat, relieved fingers resting against that fluttering pulse. He laid his cheek wearily against the wet sleek head tucked against the hollow of his shoulder and closed his eyes. Doyle hadn’t woken but Bodie was reassured by the slow beat under his fingertips. He was alive and that was all that mattered.

The noises were coming closer, water splashing around hurrying legs. Bodie was cold, the pain floating him now, but Doyle was colder, his skin icy under his hands, yet Bodie kept his grip firm, preventing his partner from drowning. He knew he should be looking for Nolan’s gun, should prepare himself to face whoever was approaching but the cold had crept insidiously, into his bones and he was drowsily wondering if he’d ever be warm and dry again. He was barely conscious when he felt Doyle begin to slip away. A protest formed, his grip tightening.

“Let go, Bodie. We have him now. Let go, lad.” The Scottish voice was oddly soothing and for some reason that bothered Bodie. He wound his fingers in Doyle’s long wet hair, but hands were prising them free. “Bodie, let go, we have him, he’s safe.”

Cowley, it was Cowley’s voice. Bodie released his grip and Doyle’s strangely floating weight drifted away along with his consciousness

 

*********

**Chapter 11**

 

 

The bright, white light blinded his eyes every time he tried to open them. Which wasn’t often, but the sensation of flying and the strange whumping noise, loud and insistent, nagged at his curiosity. Faces peered down at him, rudely peeling back his eyelids, holding an oxygen mask over his face and he protested, raising feeble hands to push them away. He turned slightly and saw his partner on a stretcher, saw people attending him, their movements frantic and swift and he anxiously tried to call his name. It was lost in the oxygen that hissed gently across his mouth. _We’re doing all we can, just relax now…_ Something warm came down over him, scratchy, but dry and gratefully he gave an inward snuggle down, allowing his mind to drift.

But eventually the pain stabbed through the analgesics and into his subconscious. Sensing movement again, he squinted up, past the blinding white light and saw a ceiling rushing past at an astonishing speed. He lay utterly still, hearing disjointed voices ebbing and flowing around him … _preparing a theatre now…risk of infection…needing antibiotics…he’s not responding…blood pressure falling… page Dr Benton…won’t know until he wakes properly..._ and a sharp Scottish voice overriding them all. “What is the full extent of his injuries?”

Cowley. Recognition came swiftly, yet he didn’t hear his partner’s voice and his cold lips moved, trying to form the name. But no sound issued and no one noticed his silent plea. A fine shiver assaulted his cold wet body and he drifted away again.

How long he drifted in and out of the pain he couldn’t say, but each time he asked after his partner and each time no one seemed to hear him. In his feverish state he tried to move, rise up, find his partner himself, but hands held him down, soothing words murmured to him and he unwillingly subsided, allowing the warm blankets to be tucked against his nakedness, but they couldn’t banish the fine shiver that assaulted every pore of his hot skin.

“Why is he still unconscious?” Cowley’s voice again. Sharp insistent, demanding answers and receiving them in medical jargon his scrambled brain couldn’t decipher. He shifted restlessly, still not hearing the one voice he wanted to, needed to. Where was he? His chest filled with icy panic as dire possibilities presented themselves. Why wasn’t he here? Cowley and the doctor conferred over his head and the only thing keeping him in the pain filled realm of awareness was his immediate concern for his partner. What the hell happened to him?

Dreams haunted the darkness he wallowed in and the dreams showed his partner, cold and blue on a slab, while Errol Hethington hovered, a scalpel in his hand, distaste on his bearded face. Panicked and alarmed, he came abruptly awake with a cry. Forced his eyes open, blinking against the fading bright white light. The room came slowly into focus, soft green curtains framing a large window, sterile white walls, the hum of machinery. A hand came to rest lightly on his arm, warm against his skin and he turned his head fractionally to look into a very familiar pair of worried eyes.

“Hello sunshine, thought you’d never wake up.”

And there was the voice he’d so wanted to hear. Relief flooded him and he shakily returned the smile. Everything was all right now.

 

***********

 

Ray Doyle had a headache and a half. Of course, getting your noggin creased by a bullet was bound to cause one. He lay in the familiar hospital bed and tried not to move his head at all, for to do so would set Big Ben tolling the midnight stroke.

“You should have taken the injection.” Bodie's voice came from the other bed, where he was propped against several pillows, a magazine on his lap, his broken ankle neatly plastered, his dislocated shoulder realigned and in a sling. “It would have worked quicker than the pills.”

Doyle deigned not to answer that, ugly memories resurfacing of being held down and forcibly injected. The recollection still strong enough to give him an aversion to needles, and he’d made them remove the intravenous lines the minute he’d come to.

Metal on metal chimed softly, the hated cuff back on his right wrist, once again securing him to the side rails. Bodie gave it a dirty look but didn’t say anything. Doyle could pick it in five seconds if he wanted to, and Bodie would leave his bed to help him do it, but he knew Doyle wouldn’t run again. Not now, not after what had happened in Nolan’s house. Doyle was wound up tight though, had been since MI6 had come in and locked it in place. Bodie shifted his gaze up to his partner, who still hadn’t opened his eyes, his face scrunched against the throbbing in his head, and had to smile. Doyle’s hair was curling softly around his disgruntled face, dry, infinitely familiar, as was the grimace on those full lips. Had to be a good sign didn’t it?

It had even stopped raining, the large window showing a remarkably cleaner London

The door opened, and he jerked his attention from his partner to see his boss standing in the doorway. George Cowley had a paper bag in one hand, his overcoat and umbrella in the other and his shrewd eyes passed over his men, from Bodie’s colourful bruising, to Doyle’s tense posture. Doyle had opened his eyes a crack to see who the visitor was and then resolutely closed them again. Bodie shook his head slightly at his partner’s behaviour. Cowley frowned as well, wondering whether Doyle was up for the argument he was so clearly looking for. He walked forward, pulled a chair up to Doyle’s bedside and sat, silently waiting until Doyle finally opened hostile eyes and glared at him.

Cowley merely gave him the paper bag. Doyle looked at it perplexed and then back at Cowley before sliding his eyes across to see Bodie’s avid blue gaze on him. He used his left hand to upend the bag into his lap. Loose change rolled out, a couple of fivers, a watch, a silver chain and a bracelet, everything that had been on his person when he’d been hauled off to prison. Doyle stared at it and then up at Cowley, expressive eyes clearly displaying a dawning hope.

The head of CI5 leaned back in the chair and said, “Parsons talked. We were right, you were a guinea pig for that drug and it has a high market value. The Golden Dragon supplied illegal Chinese immigrants who worked at Nolan’s estate manufacturing it. It was to be passed through the restaurant and onto the streets, but the floods delayed the first shipment.” He included Bodie in his sharp gaze. “They would have got away with it as well, if not for Coogan's desire for revenge.”

“We’ve got Coogan?” Bodie asked delighted, thinking that being beaten to a pulp, a dislocated shoulder and a broken ankle almost worth that bit of welcome news.

But Cowley shook his head, his gaze never leaving Doyle’s easy to read face. “No, he covered his tracks well. Parsons didn’t know of his involvement, or if he did, he’s not admitting it. The girl’s diary mentions a John, but not a surname. Coogan has a house in Fulham, but then so do many other people. Nolan would have been able to tell us who had hired him to put the bounty on you, Doyle but he’s dead.” He aimed a snort of disapproval in Doyle’s direction and glanced back to Bodie. “No we didn’t get Coogan. This time. But we did get enough evidence to clear Doyle here.”

And he reached into his pocket to pull out a handcuff key, which he promptly inserted into the metal bracelet, unlocking it from the bed. Doyle automatically raised his wrist and rubbed the abraded skin with his left hand.

“I suspect MI6 will be doing a bit of cleaning in their own house now,” Cowley said in a satisfied tone, standing up and picking up his umbrella. “And leave us to get on with our jobs.” He turned back, as if struck by an afterthought. “Oh by the way. I received an expense chit in the post today. From a Martin Martell. For clothes, doctor’s fees, food and services rendered.” He looked at his men sternly. “For the amount he’s claiming you’d think he’d clothed you in Armani, Doyle.”

Doyle rubbed the side of his nose and leaned back against the pillows. Bodie buried his face in his magazine. Outside the world suddenly turned golden, as the sun broke though the clouds.

 

Jaicen5

With thanks to

Ci5mates  
Pmgms  
For the read, encouragement and general hammering of ideas. 

May 2010

And to Sue  
For the beta


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